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TUNIS 
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 



TUNIS 



THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 



BY 



THE CHEVALIER DE HESSE-WARTEGG 




WITH TWENTV-TWb ILLUStRAtl6N8 



DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



*► -4 






J* 



PREFACE. 

Recent events in Africa have again directed the 
eyes of Europe to the small Oriental State, the 
description of which is the object of this book. 
As very few works have been written about Tunis, 
and none descriptive of the present most interesting 
state of affairs in the Regency, I have complied 
with repeated requests by publishing the result of 
my observations there. The archaeological curio- 
sities, in which the country is so rich, I have touched 
upon very lightly, as they have been repeatedly 
described, but I have paid all the more attention 
to its present condition, its towns, districts, and 
people. 

Besides my own experience last year, during 
a sojourn of several months in the Regency, I 
have profited largely by consular reports and 
other communications placed at my disposal by 
foreign representatives and by the Government of 
thr Bey. 



vi PREFACE. 

I trust that the interest of the subject, and my 
desire to meet what at the present time seems to 
be a public want, may to some extent excuse the 
shortcomings of the following pages. 

ERNEST V. HESSE -WARTEGG, 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Regency i 



CHAPTER II. 
The Bornous of the Prophet 6 

CHAPTER III. 

MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY .... 17 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Palaces of the Bey 34 

CHAPTER V. 
The Municipality and Public Institutions . . 49 



viii CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PAGR 

Curiosities in connection with the Tunisian 

Army and Navy 57 



CHAPTER VII. 
Life and Customs of good Society in Tunis . 70 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Life in a Moorish Harem 83 

CHAPTER IX. 
Walks through the Bazaars of Tunis. . . 100 

CHAPTER X. 
In the Ghetto 115 



CHAPTER XI. 
The Jewish Women of Tunis ..... 129 



CHAPTER XII. 
A Jewish Wedding 138 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A Chapter about the Management of the 

Government 149 



CONTENTS. ix 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PAGE 

A Court of Justice under His Highness the Bey 154 

CHAPTER XV. 

Administration of Justice and the state of 

Prisons in Capital anu Province ... 167 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Wanderings in the Environs of Tunis . • 177 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Quarter of the Franks and the European 

Colonies 184 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Harbour and Watering-Place of Goletta. 190 



PART IL 

CHAPTER I. 
Mater, a Tunisian Provincial Town ... 197 

CHAPTER II. 
The Medsherda Valley and its Towns . . 307 



x CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

PAGE 

Habits and Life of the Berbers . . * .215 



CHAPTER IV. 
To the Ruins of Utica . . . . . .225 

CHAPTER V. 

BlSERTA AND ITS LAKE DISTRICT .... 234 

CHAPTER VI. 
From Tunis to Kerwan 238 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Holy Town of Kerwan . . . . . 244 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Bedouins . ... . . . . 250 

CHAPTER IX. 
Woman's Life amongst the Nomads . . • 264 

CHAPTER X. 
The Coast Towns of the Sahel . . . .271 



CONTENTS. • xi 



CHAPTER XI. 

PAGB 

Sfax . . 275 

CHAPTER XII. 
Gabes and the Border District of Tripoli . 280 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Oases of Southern Tunis .... 287 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Inland Sea of Tunis . ... 298 



TUNIS 

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



PART L 
CHAPTER I. 

THE REGENCY. 

THROUGHOUT the whole length of the northern coast 
of the Dark Continent there is scarcely a grander or 
more beautiful gulf than the one on whose shores 
lie the ruins of Carthage. Little isles with rocks 
towering high above the blue waves protect it against 
the raging storms oi the open sea yonder, and a chain 
of picturesque mountains surrounds the dark-blue 
surface of the water towards the east, whereas west- 
ward the banks slope gradually, and only show at a 
great distance the tops and peaks enveloped in a blue 
mist — the last spurs of the Atlas. The more our 
steamer, coming from lovely Sicily, penetrates south, 
the smoother get the waves before its sharp bow as 
we gradually approach the distant shores, until after 
a few hours the end of the gulf rests in a wide closed 
semicircle before our eyes. Tts character and aspect 



2 TUNIS ; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

differ so little from the coasts of Italy and Spain that 
we can scarcely realise the idea of being at the gates 
of one of the oldest African empires, or in the neigh- 
bourhood of one of her oldest towns. 

At last we can distinguish the details of the 
incomparable beauty of the coast -lines. In the 
background of the gulf, on one of the dark heights 
which rise gently before us, lies the old robbers' den, 
Tunis, the whitest of all African towns, the " Bornous 
of the Prophet," as the devout Arabian calls it. 
Already we see the mighty walls which surround it, 
the solemn menacing " Kasba," the fortified prison of 
the janizaries, and the numberless domes and minarets 
which rise from among a sea of white houses. At 
the foot of this romantic picture, on a flat sandbank 
dividing the lake of Bahireh from the gulf, lies the 
harbour of Tunis, Goletta, the limit of our travels for 
the present. On both sides the most charming 
residences cling to the coast for miles, and seen from 
afar these houses, which beam in the radiance of an 
African sun, appear like doves bathing in shallow 
water. Every corner, every projection of the broken 
and wild zigzag coast is occupied by one of these 
villas, to which are generally attached large pleasure- 
gardens, orangeries, and olive groves. Here and 
there the high soaring date-tree — this truest token of 
Africa — hovers over all. 

In the midst of this picturesque landscape on the 
coast rise two bare melancholy-looking mounds or 
tombs ; one marking the ruins of Carthage, the 
other the sepulchre of Saint Lewis, King of France. 
Carthage contended for the empire of the world with 



THE REGENCY. 



her mightiest contemporary — Rome — and after a 
series of bloody wars was conquered and destroyed. 
Lewis, and with him Christendom, shared the same 
fate on African soil in the struggle against Islam. 

Tunis, grown out of the ashes of the Roman 
colony, received its autonomy only with Islam. In 
the year A.D. 644 Arabian tribes penetrated from the 
East and overran the whole of Western Africa, con- 
quered the maritime territories of the Mediterranean, 
and even invaded and subdued Spain. These fanatics 
destroyed all evidences of Christian culture, overthrew 
their temples, and with the fragments built their own 
palaces and mosques. The land was then divided 
into smaller Mohammedan States, and in this way 
originated Kairwan, which had to pay tribute to the 
Caliphs of Bagdad, and of which Tunis was chosen 
capital. When at last, after many wars, Ferdinand 
the Catholic succeeded 400 hundred years ago in 
driving the Moors out of Spain, and even conquered 
them in Africa, they invoked the protection of the 
Turkish Empire, then in the zenith of its power — 
and from that time dates the supreme rule of the 
Sultan of Constantinople over Mohammedan Western 
Africa. 

For centuries the history of Tunis has been an un- 
interrupted series of struggles, wars, palace intrigues, 
murderous deeds, and piratical cruises. From 1673, 
when the Dey Hadshi Mohamed Menteshali was 
deposed by the Bey of the Janizaries, until 1705 
lasted the struggle between the princes nominated by 
the Turks — the Deys — and the military commanders 
or Beys, which ended finally in the sway of the 



4 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

latter. Within the period mentioned — that is to say, 
thirty-two years — no fewer than nineteen Deys were 
deposed, driven away, strangled, or decapitated. Only 
in 1705 did Hussein Ben Ali, the Bey of the vic- 
torious Janizaries, succeed in obtaining from the high 
Porte sovereign power over Tunis, and then only 
under the condition that he would keep the Deys at 
the head of the ministry as representatives of the 
Grand Turk. But in the course of time the Deys 
were deprived of even these subordinate positions, 
and long since ceased to take any part in the 
Government. 

The Hussein Ben Ali above mentioned is the 
founder of the reigning dynasty of to-day ; but, 
whether under this sway or that of the former Deys, 
Tunis was always feared and hated in Europe on 
account of its piracy. From this same beautiful gulf 
which we just entered, issued in days gone by those 
cruel and fanatical corsairs, who traversed the seas 
and were the terror of merchantmen. Tunis became 
the receptacle of the booty of these robbers, where it 
was publicly sold in the market-place. Hence the 
fairy-like magnificence and proverbial riches of Tunis 
of the past ; hence those palaces, those lovely gardens, 
the harems abounding with gold, in which European 
women, often of noble birth, had to serve the volup- 
tuousness of these Moorish robbers. 

However, in the beginning of this century the 
European powers put a stop to this piratical state of 
affairs, and from that time dates the decay of the 
Regency, which increased more and more. It was 
booty, obtained from the foreigner, which enriched the 



THE REGENCY. 



country, not the thrift and industry of its inhabitants. 
So soon as treasures ceased to enter the land to 
nourish the love of pomp and the dissipation of the 
Moorish grandees, their old grandeur began to pale. 
The fairy -like castles fell into ruins ; the gardens, 
with their delightful flower-beds, their delicious 
groves, their magnificent kiosks and fountains, became 
desolate ; the harems, the brilliant festivities, the 
luxuries, all disappeared, leaving scarcely a trace 
behind. The princes of the land alone had the power 
to feed their languishing resources by extortion and 
robbery of their subjects, which only hastened the 
ruin of the people itself. The Tunis we visit to-day 
is scarcely a shadow of what it was at the beginning 
of this century. Only the people have remained the 
same, and they have preserved the primitive origin- 
ality of their customs and usages from the constant 
hostility they live in with the surrounding tribes. In 
Tunis we still see, therefore, a part of the purely 
genuine Orient, a bulwark of the Middle Ages 
reaching dark and threatening into modern times. 
The French occupation has only now battered a 
breach, and her influence may in time succeed, 
perhaps, in bringing back to the Regency the old 
prosperity which it enjoyed many centuries ago when 
still a Roman province. 



TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. 

" BORNOUS of the Prophet " is the name which the 
faithful give to the capital of Tunis. With a mind 
truly Eastern they fancy to see in the form of the 
town which gently rises towards a hill the shape of 
an extended bornous, of which Kasba, the citadel, 
situated on the top, is said to be the hood. As the 
Mohammedan connects everything with his religion 
and its founder, this bornous could only be the 
bornous of the Prophet. 

The town extends on the east side of a narrow 
strip of land, which separates two large salt lakes. 
Of these latter the eastern one is El Bahireh (so rich 
in flamingoes and pelicans), which, near Goletta in 
the east, is directly connected with the Gulf of 
Carthage, and through this with the Mediterranean. 
The western lake, called Sebeha-el-Sedchum, is 
scarcely more than a morass, dry for several months 
of the year, while filled with salt water during winter, 
and it is surrounded to a great extent by high pic- 
turesque mountain -chains. To the north of this 
morass is situated the Manoubia, a town of villas, 



THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. 



and the quarter of 
the Tunisian gran- 
dees, as well as the 
Bardo, the official 
residence of the Bey 
of Tunis. 

The narrow space 
on the above-men- 
tioned strip of land 
was the cause of the 
town not extending 
evenly on all sides, 
and of the two 
suburbs north and 
south only develop- 
ing themselves 
under the walls of 
the old town, enclos- 
ing the " city " like 
two large semicircles. 
These two suburbs, 
called Bab-el- 
Dehesira and Bab- 
el-Suika, were again 
surrounded by the 
Turks with high thick 
walls, so that double 
gates must be passed 
before an entry can 
be effected into the 
heart of Tunis. Only 
on the eastern side 




8 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

does the fortified wall of the inner town come into 
the same line as the outer wall, and here is the sea- 
gate, sOj.well known to the visitors of Tunis, before 
which the European quarter extends, and which is 
called Bab-el-Bahireh. 

There are few Eastern towns which offer a truer 
or a more genuine picture of Mohammedan life than 
Tunis. The fanaticism of the inhabitants, the con- 
stant enmity in which the rulers lived with all the 
powers of the Mediterranean, the strict laws, and the 
contempt with which the faithful treated every 
" Christian dog," preserved the town until this day 
from intermixture with foreign elements ; and 
though a mighty respect for the European has long 
since taken the place of official intolerance of former 
times, still he prefers to take up his residence in 
one of the new streets before the sea -gate, which 
have originated in later years. This contributes to 
maintain pure the character of the old Moorish 
town. 

But this does not become apparent to the visitor 
at the first blush when he arrives by railway from 
Goletta, the harbour. He will see at once, in the 
peculiar railway carriages, constructed with those 
Egyptian -like verandahs, Tunisian functionaries in 
European dress, very few turbans, and scarcely a 
bornous. The railway station where he arrives is 
European, an Italian carriage awaits him, and the 
streets through which he passes to his hotel look 
European too — just because the "Town of the 
Franks" is entirely separated from the Moorish 
part Only when the visitor leaves the street of 



THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. 9 

his hotel, and turns into one of the little side streets, 
does he behold the Arabian town. The best way 
to do this is from the " Marina," a little place covered 
with Italian coffee-houses, and situated inside the 
above-mentioned sea -gate. From here the five 
principal streets branch out in all directions, but the 
widest of these is only just broad enough to let one 
carriage past, whereas the others are even too nar- 
row for foot-passengers, of whom three can barely 
walk abreast. Still they are the most important 
medium of communication in Tunis, as through them 
the different parts of the town are reached, the 
quarters of the Franks, of the Arabs, and of the 
Jews, and finally of the Consuls near the Bahireh lake. 
We make our way through the narrowest and dirtiest 
of these streets, and a few steps take us into the Jews' 
quarter. Distinguished as the little Arabian streets 
are for dirt, they are considerably outdone by the 
Jewish. The streets are, after every fifty or a hun- 
dred steps, blocked by walls or houses, the latter 
having no .numbers, nor the streets names. But the 
inhabitants find their way notwithstanding, for they 
leave their houses rarely, and then only to go to the 
synagogue or to see a friend close by. There are 
others who do not leave their houses for years, who 
live and die where they have been born without ever 
entering the Arabian part or the Marina. After 
wandering about for a long time, and climbing up 
the highest houses compass in hand, I succeeded in 
committing to paper the confused net of narrow 
streets. It looks more like the much -entwined 
branches of a coral-tree than like the plan of a town. 



io TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Imagine, now, this part of the town at night without 
a street lamp, without even a light from a shop — of 
which there are none — the streets lonely, without a 
creature to be seen ; and yet this is the most densely- 
populated quarter of Tunis. 

Not much better is the adjoining Arabian suburb 
Bab-el-Suika. The streets here are a little broader 
and lighter ; the houses have not two or three floors, 
but only a ground floor, no windows, and firmly 
closed doors. Here and there you pass a mosque, 
of which Tunis is said to possess no less than five 
hundred ; you walk past crowded bazaars, barracks 
Arabian khans, in which heavily-packed camels and 
mules press against each other, then again through 
quiet, silent streets, where now and then a muffled-up 
woman slips by ; all at once you find yourself in 
noisy lanes, where you are either pushed about or 
carried forward, and where you are in danger of 
being run over by a laden mule, or of getting under 
the feet of a camel, which, with its bale of goods, 
takes up the whole breadth of the little street, while 
slowly and solemnly stalking towards you. There 
are everywhere corners, passages, side streets, and 
nooks and holes without name or designation. If 
the wanderer is without a guide he is soon com- 
pletely lost in this maze, for rarely does a European 
or Maltese wend his way here whom he could ask 
for information. He might enter dozens of well- 
paved streets, which all get gradually narrower and 
darker, till at last they are closed by either some 
high house in ruins or by a high gate tightly bolted 
and barred ! In trying another street we come upon 



THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. n 

a crowded bazaar, so full of life and commotion, of 
screams and shouts, that we are glad to leave it 
again. After having marched for half an hour, only 
to return again to the same place, we take yet 
another direction. We are tired at last, and sit 
down on a large stone in the street, but before 
having rested two minutes, thumps and blov/s and 
stones, thrown by wild-looking Arabs, drive us away 
again ; we had inadvertently sat down on the tomb- 
stone of a saint, and try to escape the rage of the 
fanatics as fast as possible. Rarely is an open door 
or window seen in the street ; some of the houses 
are bedaubed with the most primitive drawings of 
wild animals, plants, or houses, at which a wild fellow, 
half naked, works as we pass ; he jumps at us as if 
he were mad, and is only kept back with trouble by 
one of his co-religionists ; it was a saint, which in 
Tunis is equivalent to a fool. Walking on, we come 
to wide, open gates, through which we scan spacious 
courts, with rows of columns, but scarcely do we put 
our foot on the first step leading there than some 
Arabs, who linger about on the steps, drive us back 
with screams, for we have approached a mosque, 
inaccessible to Europeans. On the wide open spaces 
we see innumerable camels and horses ; it is market- 
day. At last we find temporary rest in one of the 
numerous Arabian coffee-houses ; these are small 
dark rooms, along the walls of which divans are run- 
ning with turbaned Moors resting upon them. Their 
slippers stand before them on the floor. Some of 
these grave-looking figures drink coffee and smoke 
their " tshibuk," rarely " nargileh," which has almost 



12 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

disappeared from Tunis ; others crouch on the mat- 
ting playing draughts or chess. Here we too may 
rest in peace. The host brings us coffee, hot but thick, 
and also excellent Tunisian tobacco for a cigarette, 
all this for three or four " karrubs " — one penny ! 

The farther we move from the centre of the town, 
the lonelier and the more monotonous get the streets, 
and the poorer also the inhabitants. Here live 
labourers, masons, and other workmen, and in houses 
fallen into ruin are encamped the Bedouin tribes, 
who visit the capital to attend its market ; this is 
also the quarter of the water-carriers, cake -sellers, 
and the numerous representatives of foreign tribes, 
the Biskris, the Barbars, etc. ; and here the caravans 
coming from the inland towns and from the oases 
find a place. The streets are unpaved, dusty, and 
at the time of rainfalls impassible, without lamps of 
any kind, and if they happened to be in Rome or 
Naples they would be a paradise for assassins and 
robbers. But here there is no danger of this kind ; 
rarely a crime of this sort is committed, and if it 
does happen, the guilt generally lies at the door of a 
Greek or a Maltese. 

To the west of the great mosque Saituna, which 
is in the centre of the town, lies the fashionable part, 
between the Turkish fortress Kasba and the said 
mosque. Already the breadth and cleanliness of 
the streets leading to it tell us that somebody power- 
ful must have a palace there, for it is a characteristic 
of Tunis that dirt is only then removed from its 
centres of traffic when the severe eye of a General, 
Minister, or Mufti might light upon it. To the 



THE BORNOUS OF 7 HE PROPHET. 13 

Oriental to take a walk is an unknown thing. The 
rich drive out in their carriages only to visit each 
other or to attend the audiences of the Bey, whereas 
merchants, owners of bazaars, and people in general 
only frequent the streets leading to the bazaars, and 
rarely deviate from the shortest way. When the 
day's work is done, they return to their houses, and 
do not appear till early the following morning. For 
this reason the municipality only cares to be agree- 
able to the great and the mighty ; sand is strewn on 
their ways, their pavement is kept in order, and the 
dirt is removed from their streets to be put down 
again in one of the more distant ones of a poorer 
quarter. 

After the European quarter, the one where the 
Bey's palace, Dar-el-Bey, is situated is the finest of 
the town. To reach the latter after leaving the 
former we had to pass the narrow but always lively 
lanes of the bazaar, which gets finer and more ele- 
gant as we approach nearer to the Dar-el-Bey. 
After walking through the Suk-el-Bey (the bazaar of 
the Bey), we see through a high gate a large place 
of which the centre forms a well-kept garden, planted 
with almond and palm trees. Two sides of this 
square are taken up by the high stone arches of the 
new bazaar, Khereddin, over which a charming little 
mosque is raised, one of the prettiest in Tunis, 
covered with lovely marble sculptures, and an hexa- 
gonal minaret of yellow sand-stone. On the third 
side of the square we see the dark, imposing walls of 
the old prison fortress, the Kasba, dating from the 
reign of the Turks, and the fourth shows us the 



14 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

stately front of Dar-el-Bey, at the gate of which a 
couple of ragged infantry soldiers are idling about, 
occupied either with knitting or basket-making. 

Though the Kasba is in ruins, you cannot enter 
it without an order from the Ministry. A division 
of soldiers still keeps guard at its gate, flanked by 
well-fortified towers. What for? If every ruin of 
Tunis was to have a military guard, a whole army 
would be required. The inside of this fortification, 
which was battered down in 1 8 1 1 , is only a large 
heap of ruins, and only a small mosque with pretty 
stucco-ornamented minaret is preserved amongst all 
these ruins, which might be considered the symbol 
of the Turks' sway in days gone by. 

Looked at from the outer walls of the Kasba, 
proud even in their decay, the grand Moorish town 
looks majestic in a high degree. Often did I ask 
my dragoman to accompany me up there, when 
stretched on the ruins I used to follow the maze of 
the thousand lanes and passages of which this finest 
of Moorish towns is composed. Hundreds of snow- 
white or dark-green domes overlook the sea of houses 
gently sloping down towards El Bahireh, and slender 
minarets tower over it all. Here and there the 
wilderness of flat roofs is interrupted by a few palm- 
trees, and lower down near the marshy shores of the 
lake some foliage from the gardens of the Consuls 
terminates the precincts of the city. Only the 
north-eastern part of Tunis is uninterrupted in its 
uniformity by any minarets ; the houses here are 
smaller and closer together ; no domes of mosques 
or sepulchral monuments are to be seen, not even 



THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. 15 

the top of a tree stands forth. It is the Jews' 
quarter of Tunis. 

The grandest structures are, as already mentioned, 
in the upper part of the town, near the Dar-el-Bey. 
Here are still found the palaces of centuries ago, 
desolate indeed, but still magnificent. Towards the 
street bare and unsightly, we see their splendour only 
by entering their courts. I found many houses in 
which the colonnades were marble monoliths with 
splendid capitals, evidently taken from that great 
quarry which lies in the immediate neighbourhood, 
where the building stones are ready cut, and beauti- 
fully ornamented, and where there is no dearth of them 
— Carthage. This ancient town was such a fruitful 
field for the Tunisians that in every second house are 
found Roman stones with inscriptions or sculptures, 
parts of columns and capitals. If Tunis were de- 
stroyed her ruins would be the ruins of Carthage ! 

To describe the street-life of Tunis, to paint the 
forms and types which press against each other here, 
is perhaps the most difficult task which presents 
itself to the traveller. To depict amongst the thou- 
sands of wayfarers the different races, clans, occupa- 
tions, and degrees ; to explain their tokens and 
characteristics, to describe their costumes and manners, 
would alone take up several chapters. Only after 
the study of weeks or even months does the attentive 
observer succeed in bringing method into this con- 
fusion of nations. 

The majority are of course Moors, with white, 
sometimes yellow, flowered turbans, always carefully 
wound, with short embroidered jackets, and wide 



1 6 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

trousers full of folds, with a coloured sash round the 
body. Sometimes they throw a light cloak of thin 
silk round their shoulders ; their feet, covered with 
the whitest of stockings, are put into slippers of red 
or yellow leather ; their handkerchief, tied by a corner 
to their cloak, hangs in front ; a rose behind the right 
ear and a cane with silver button completes this dress. 

Now and then you meet Moors with red turbans, 
the sign of the Hadchis or Mecca pilgrims ; or others 
with green turbans, the sign of the descendants of the 
Prophet, the so-called Shereefs ; others wear their 
white turbans in closer folds, the sign of the Kadis ; 
these latter often wear two or three pairs of shoes, in 
which they shuffle slowly along. The Jews are only 
distinguished from the Moors by their dark-blue or 
black turbans, and altogether by the darker colours 
of their dress, which used to be obligatory, and to 
which they kept after liberty of dress was granted 
them ; the Bedouin is wrapped up completely in his 
white but dirty bornous with its hood. 

Women are rarely seen in the streets, except the 
Bedouin and Kabyle women, who are covered with 
blue shawls, and show themselves without veils ; the 
Jewesses, with their tight trousers, made of white 
linen, and their light-coloured chemises ; the Moorish 
women, enveloped entirely in white shawls ; negresses, 
women from Malta and Greece. It is a chaos of 
nations, costumes, grades, and classes, which can only 
be set out in proper colours in the following chapters. 
And all these, houses, mosques, populace, are inclosed 
by the " Bornous of the Prophet !" Shall we succeed 
in lifting this cloak ? 



MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 17 



!§&*. 




CHAPTER 
III. 

MOHAMED 
ES SADOCK 
PASHA BEY. 



THE BEY OF TUNIS 



F course there 
is no doubt 
that until 
now the dy- 
nasty of the 
Husseinites 
has not shown 
itself either 
very liberal or 
very accessible 
to European 
influence. The Court 
history or memoirs 
which an African 
Dumas might write 



1 8 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

in future of the rulers of Tunis, will not differ much 
from the Memoirs of the Sanson Family. About 
two -thirds of the members of the dynasty have, 
during the two hundred years of their existence, 
perished by a violent death. Up to the beginning 
of this century one murdered the other, or persons 
who put themselves at the head of an insurrection 
lynched the Regent or the royal princes either from 
jealousy or to put themselves at the head of the 
Government. It was managed like the " pronuncia- 
menti " for the last hundred years in Mexico. 

Only since Mahmoud Bey ascended the throne in 
1 8 14 — of course, also through the murder of his 
predecessor and his two sons — did the slaughter 
cease ; and though the series of interesting little 
Court stories did not cease with it, still everything 
was more quiet and respectable. It was for their 
own good that Mahmoud and his successor showed 
themselves more accessible to European influence. 
While the neighbouring Beys of Algiers and Con- 
stantine resisted the French steadily, and had their 
states confiscated, besides being driven out of their 
country for a punishment, the Beys of Tunis abstained, 
against the will of their subjects, from showing any 
open hostility towards the mighty conquerer, and 
while they accepted the reforms dictated by Europe 
they escaped the fate of their neighbours. 

But in one respoct the Husseinites remained true 
to themselves and to the qualities of an Oriental ruler 
— namely, in the love of pomp, and in the lavishness 
of their hospitality and munificence. The unheard-of 
luxury displayed by Achmet Bey when visiting Louis 



MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 19 

Philippe in 1846 is remembered in France to this day. 
Never did Paris behold before larger brilliants or 
costlier jewels of so many different kinds, and only 
the visit of the Shah of Persia and of the Sultan 
during the exhibition of 1867 dimmed to a certain 
extent the recollection of the first visit of an 
Oriental ruler in civilised Europe. 

The liberal and high-minded Achmet was followed 
by his dissipated cousin Mohamed, who is only men- 
tioned here because of a European innovation he 
introduced into his State — though not the most 
desirable one — namely, a national debt. He only 
reigned four years, but the people remember his 
exorbitant taxes and his avarice as well as if he had 
ruled half a century. He had a decided predilection 
for mechanics, for the fine arts and literature, but 
without ever importing a machine, or ever buying 
a properly-painted picture, and without allowing a 
printing press to be established for either book or 
newspaper. Roving literates, bad painters, etc., 
found with him the -most liberal support and highest 
honours ; but as the populace of Tunis does not 
consist entirely of literates and painters, his memory 
amongst the people is not the best. 

The Bey reigning at present, Mohamed es Sadock, 
is the second son of Achmet Bey, who died in 1856. 
A fanatical priest, called Ismail Sufi, educated both 
him and his brother and predecessor. This priest 
hated European culture and civilisation most cordially, 
and resisted, therefore, with all his power the inten- 
tions of Achmet Bey, who wished to have his sons 
instructed in the French language, and in the history 



20 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and geography of the European States. When, 
therefore, Mohamed es Sadock ascended the throne 
of Tunis on the 23d September 1859 not much was 
to be expected from his wisdom. However, he was 
not averse to European influences, and he kept up 
many arrangements copied from the households of 
European princes which had been introduced by 
Achmet Bey, especially those which related to ex- 
ternals, such as the way of living. 

" Orient and Occident can no longer be separated." 
It is difficult here to find out where the Oriental ceases 
and where the European begins. The machinery of 
administration, the army and navy, the Court of the 
Bey itself, as far as it does not concern the female 
part, are in their aspect half European. With one 
single exception, the royal princes wear European 
dress, dark coats, light trousers, and black neckties. 
The only sign of distinction of the Oriental, or rather 
of the Mohamedan, is the " shachia," the red fez, 
without which none of the faithful can do as yet. 
The Bey himself wears the uniform of a Tunisian 
General, a dark coat with gold braid and heavy 
epaulets, red trousers with gold lace, the shachia, on 
which is fastened a clasp of gold set in jewels which 
represent the arms of the Husseinites ; and finally he 
carries, on golden hangings, a scimitar with a costly 
hilt set in splendid jewels. When in full dress — on 
the last day of the Rhamadan, for instance, or when 
he receives newly-accredited ambassadors — the Bey 
wears the decorations of about thirty grand crosses, 
especially the Golden Fleece, the English Order of 
the Bath, the Star of the Legion d'Honneur, the 



MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 21 

Austrian Order of Stephan, and the Order of his own 
house. One of the first institutions which the Orient 
adapted was certainly this one of the orders — a 
creation of modern times, both in Asia and Africa, 
and most welcome to the Orientals, so fond of out- 
ward show. In his own State the Bey of Tunis has 
introduced the " Order of Glory " (Nishan Iftikar), 
worn to-day by the first monarchs of Europe. 

There are, besides this one, three other Tunisian 
decorations which rank before the " Order of Glory," 
but they are only given to Mohammedans, or at least 
natives who are in the service of the Mushir. These 
orders, neither entered in the Red Book of Tunis nor 
in the Almanac de Gotka, are the Husseinitish family 
order, worn round the neck and set in brilliants ; the 
Order del Ahed, only consisting of brilliants ; and 
the Order del Ahed el Aman. 

The ministers and other civil functionaries in the 
capital also wear the military uniform only. There 
is no " Excellency " in Tunis, and the title of 
" General " takes the place of it. Only the First 
Minister or Grand Vizier is an exception, and he is 
called " Excellency." The provincial functionaries, 
as well as the Church dignitaries, all still wear the 
picturesque Arabian dress with broadly-folded turban, 
light -coloured wide trousers, snow-white stockings, 
and bornous. In the belt a pair of pistols are 
carried, with a silver top beautifully chased, as 
well as a costly dagger. But even here the Arabian 
dress is disappearing more and more, and only 
the Muftis, Cadis, and Caliphs, and all those who 
have direct communication with the lower classes, and 



22 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

must carry the distinction of their office and dignity 
on their turban, have preserved the original custom. 

The heir presumptive to the throne, Sidi-Ali Bey, 
brother of the reigning Mushir, a man of stately 
appearance, with a white beard trimmed in the 
Turkish fashion, has also kept to the Arabian dress ; 
but he is scarcely ever seen. It is an Oriental 
custom to ignore the heir apparent of the sovereign 
completely. No Minister or officer of State is 
allowed ever to visit or otherwise communicate with 
him ; he would have to pay for it by banishment or 
the loss of his place. Neither are the representatives 
of foreign sovereigns allowed to visit him ; he is 
personally unknown to them. It is considered here 
high treason, and in the case of the Consuls a great 
want of consideration towards the Bey, to pay any 
attention whatever to his successor, as this would be 
taken for an allusion to the vanity of the earthly 
power of the Regent and his eventual death. Sidi- 
Ali Bey resides with his family and his harem, con- 
taining about three hundred women, in a splendid 
palace at Marsa, a place near the capital, and comes 
only once a Week to the residence of the Bey, to do 
homage together with the other princes and the State 
functionaries. 

The immediate circle of the Bey of Tunis is a 
very large one ; for the whole machinery of adminis- 
tration — ministers, aides-de-camp, the local authori- 
ties, etc. — all follow the person of the monarch 
wherever he goes. Fortunately, his travels are 
limited : he leaves his palace of Bardo once a year 
to go to the capital, and from there he goes either to 



MO HAM ED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 23 

Goletta, where he spends the summer in a little 
castle at the seaside near the ruins of Carthage, or to 
the watering-place Hamman-en-Lif, where he pos- 
sesses an enormous palace, and takes the hot mineral 
baths, which are famous. The Grand Vizier, Mus- 
tapha Ben Ismail, is his constant companion ; and 
before the French occupation took place he was the 
mightiest man in the State, of greater influence and 
power than the Bey himself, as he directed public 
affairs, and his directions were only submitted to the 
Bey for confirmation. The Grand Vizier is present 
at all audiences which the Bey grants to his subjects, 
or to the Ambassadors and Consuls at his Court, and 
the Regent never communicates with his subjects 
without asking his Minister's opinion. Mustapha 
Ben Ismail is the first native Tunisian who holds 
this high office. All his predecessors were of Turkish 
or Greek race. Mustapha Ben Ismail Chasnadar 
(Chasnadar is the Arabian name for treasurer) does 
not come of a family of high standing, and in his 
early youth he was waiter or barber ; but he was a 
handsome boy, and when on the feast of Beyram he 
passed the windows of Dar-el-Bey, the town resi- 
dence of the Mushir, the latter's attention was roused. 
The Bey was always very fond of children, though 
he has none of his own ; he adopted little Mustapha, 
had him educated, and got to like him so much that 
he gave him the title of " the son of the Bey," and 
did not part with him again. For years Mustapha 
has been allowed to sleep in the Bey's bed -room. 
At the early age of twenty- five he was nominated 
General and Commander of the Body -Guard, and 



24 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

later as Keeper of the Great Seal and Minister of 
Marine. He was, after the fall of the wise and 
mighty Chasnadar, Cheir-ed-Din, initiated in the 
management of the affairs of the State as Prime 
Minister by Mohamed Chasnadar,. who then was 
Minister ad interim. At last he was actually called 
to this highest position, which he still holds to the 
greatest detriment of the country. 

Amongst the incredible intrigues, calumnies, and 
persecutions to which the dignitaries at an Oriental 
Court are exposed, and recognising the highly 
perilous and insecure position of a Prime Minister, 
entirely dependent as he is on the caprices of the 
Bey, it was not to be wondered at that Mustapha, 
as soon as he was appointed Chasnadar, banished 
and got rid of all officials and functionaries round 
the Bey, in whose stead he put his own relations and 
devoted friends. To be safe in his own position, he 
could not suffer any ambitious rivals near him. To 
avoid palace revolutions, he deposed the Bash- 
Chamba (Grand Marshal of the Palace), who was 
the brother of the favourite and Bash-Chamba of 
Sidi-Ali Bey, and in his place he put his own brother- 
in-law. At first it was not believed that Mustapha 
would remain Prime Minister long ; but this was a 
mistake. He balances himself cleverly between the 
Bey and the here all-powerful French Ambassador, 
distributing favours amongst those from whom he 
has expectations, and making many friends through 
his amiability. The impression he made on me 
when I first saw him was a favourable one. I visited 
him together with the representative of a European 



MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 25 

power at his office in Goletta, the seaport of Tunis, 
which was the seat of the Government at the time 
because of the presence of the Bey there. The 
palace is a vast building of one floor, with large 
windows and green Venetian blinds. It is built in 
the Italian style, and situated on an extensive place 
near the sea -coast. Round it were grouped, in 
picturesque style, the tents of the Bey's irregular 
body-guard of Bedouins ; the horses, saddled and 
equipped, stood round fastened to pickets, while the 
guards, little minding us, lay stretched in the tents, 
decked out in their becoming garments, with pistols 
and daggers in their belts. I wished to look at the 
beautifully -chased hilts of their weapons, but they 
refused, and still less would they remove their dag- 
gers from the sheath. At the entrance of the palace 
stood a few Bedouins and Jews awaiting the district 
judge, who was to decide a case between them. The 
large hall was crowded with Tunisian civil and mili- 
tary functionaries. A broad staircase leads to the 
first floor, where we took a seat in the office of 
General Bakush, one of the directors of the Ministry 
for Foreign Affairs, 1 while waiting the Prime Minis- 
ter's arrival. There was a deafening noise below, 
and a confused buzzing of voices was heard, which 
remined me of the public sales in Oriental bazaars. 
In the wide hall, into which all the offices opened, 
aides-de-camp and clerks walked to and fro; most 
of these in plain clothes, the sign of distinction of 
their official position being a small brass plate 

1 In the meanwhile General Bakush has been deposed and made 
Governor of Susa. 



t6 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

attached to their red caps. The official language is 
of course Tunisian -Arabic, very different from the 
Turkish or Egyptian. There seem to be no archives 
of the State and no library — at least we saw neither 
in the whole building. As long as documents are 
required they are kept in the official residence of the 
Bey, but they disappear in the course of time. 
Hereditary nobility, bureaucracy, or merit, etc., do 
not exist. Talents, knowledge, high birth, are of no 
value ; the jealous, ignorant despots suppress them 
as much as possible, lest they should endanger their 
own position. All the officials, directors, ministers, 
etc., are taken from the lowest positions, from the 
inferior classes, to fill the higher functions. Nobody 
ever knows whether the Bedouin he meets in the 
street to-day may not be an influential man to-morrow ; 
and this is the reason why the spirit of caste, or 
pride, is unknown in Tunis. If subordinates kiss the 
hands of some functionaries or of rich people, which 
they do sometimes in the streets and elsewhere, this 
is only a sort of salutation — intercourse itself is quite 
free and unconstrained. There prevails an almost 
republican equality amongst the people up to the 
highest, most surprising to any one who is not 
acquainted with local circumstances. As mentioned 
before, the Prime Minister, with the pompous title 
of " Son of the Bey," was when a boy an assistant to 
a barber ; General Bakush, the son of a slave, was 
up to his twentieth year a commission agent. The 
Moors, however, possess a marvellous skill in fitting 
themselves for these higher positions, and also in 
behaving conformably. The best example here is 



MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 27 

the Grand Vizier himself. He arrived in a splen- 
didly-appointed carriage, drawn by two beautiful 
mules. Three aides-de-camp rode before the car^ 
riage, also on mules, while a number of guards 
followed. The Minister entered amidst deep silence, 
followed by a brilliant suite, and ascended the stair- 
case leading to his office, while the functionaries 
kissed his hands with reverence. Immediately after 
we were led into a large room furnished with 
European luxury, where the Premier received us. 
He is a handsome young man, with decidedly 
Oriental and somewhat effeminate features ; his 
manner is kind and obliging, and his conversation 
betrays sharpness and a clear judgment Mustapha 
Ben Ismail is a crafty and avaricious intriguer. 
During the three years he has been at the head of 
affairs he has succeeded in scraping together millions 
of piastres ; his greatest pleasure are decorations and 
brilliants, and of the latter he is said to possess an 
enormous quantity. He is well aware of the in- 
security of his position, and of the dangers to which 
his large fortune is exposed if he should fall ; he 
therefore has taken all possible precautions. He 
has entered his name on the list of the French 
Embassy, and by this act he has put himself outside 
Tunisian jurisdiction. His avarice and also his 
native simplicity are illustrated by many drastic 
examples. General Mohamed Bakush had a large 
house built on the Marina, the most beautiful street 
of Tunis in the European quarter. The Chasnadar 
heard this, looked at the house, and said to Bakush : 
" Sidi, I like your house, give it to me ! " " Siatik 



28 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

essacha !" (Much good may it do you), answered 
Bakush, " but you see the house is not ready ; I will 
have it finished first !" The Chasnadar was satisfied, 
and Bakush hastened to put himself at once under 
French protection, and so carry on the structure suf- 
ficiently to make it inhabitable without finishing it. 
And his Excellency the Prime Minister has been 
waiting a long time for the house of the chief of his 
Cabinet 

While I stayed in Mater, a small provincial town 
about a day's journey from Tunis, I witnessed another 
amusing incident which illustrates both the Prime 
Minister's greediness, and also the wonderful adminis- 
tration of justice in Tunis. The Caid of Mater had 
fallen in disgrace and was deposed. The Chasnadar, 
who understands equally well how to drain the rich 
and the poor of his province, had asked for certain 
contributions of which the Caid refused to pay the 
last, which amounted to 40,000 piastres. The 
Minister wanted money. He knew the Caid possessed 
immense sums obtained in an unlawful manner. So 
he deposed and locked him up. In the meanwhile 
two Bedouin chiefs were summoned from the moun- 
tains of his province, and they had to testify for a 
consideration, that the Caid had cheated them out of 
40,000 piastres. He was sentenced to pay this sum 
in consequence. To reward their love of truth the 
faithful Bedouins got a gold piece each, and Sidi 
Mustapha pocketed the thousands. 

I should not like to say the Caid of Mater was 
wronged by this proceeding. On the contrary, his 
involuntary contribution was a proof of his great riches. 



MO HAM ED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY. 29 

In Europe a costly sensational process would have 
been necessary to convict the official. 

The Bey himself is an amiable, good-natured 
prince, and when, in some of his Oriental dominions, 
the affairs of State are managed in rather an African 
way, it is not entirely his fault. The direction of the 
financial affairs of this land has been for years in the 
hands of a European commission, to whom he has 
transferred nearly all the revenues of the State, to pay 
the debts of his predecessors. The one or two millions 
which he keeps yearly are quite sufficient for his 
modest household. He travelled much in his exten- 
sive States as " Bey du Camp " — that is to say, prince 
of the field or successor to the throne — and since then 
has always lived in his palace, the Bardo, or during 
the hot summer months in a charming villa situated 
near the sea, where I succeeded in seeing him. A 
ditch and fortified wall lined with large cannons, and 
bordering on the seaport Goletta, encircles a wide plain, 
in the middle of which, built out into the sea, stands 
the princely villa. Sentries and guards in scarlet 
uniforms richly embroidered with gold, and armed 
with pistols and scimitars, guard the entries. A long 
bridge leads over the shallow sea-shore up to the broad 
verandah of the building, where large ostriches strut 
about. On the divans of the ante-rooms the aides- 
de-camp rest, and so does the Bash-Chamba, who 
announces us for a private audience. Soon a 
dragoman presents himself and takes us into a 
luxurious drawing-room, where the Bey sits at the far 
end on a low seat under a baldachin. He rises at 
our entrance, walks a few steps towards us, and 



30 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

stretches out his hand. At a certain distance from 
the throne, seats are put, and we are invited to sit 
down. The Grand Vizier is already in the room, and 
stands at the right of the throne. We exchange the 
prescribed Oriental civilities, which the dragoman, 
standing in a military attitude between us and the 
throne, repeats slowly. In the conversation which 
follows, the Bey shows himself very familiar with 
European matters, and directs it to various subjects, 
having for everything an appropriate, sometimes a 
witty remark. Mohamed es Sadock is a handsome 
man, of noble, intelligent appearance, his face sur- 
rounded by a gray beard and moustache. 

His mode of living is, according to his Master of 
the Household, very simple. In the morning he takes 
^coffee and biscuits while receiving the reports of his 
Prime Minister and the Commandant of the Palace, 
grants audiences, and settles affairs of State. He dines 
with the Prime Minister alone. The bill of fare con- 
sists principally of European dishes, and "kuskussu," 
without which no Tunisian meal is considered 
complete, either in palace or hut (it is poultry mixed 
with a kind, of pudding and all sorts of spices, 
somewhat like the Turkish " pillau "). He drinks at 
dinner, against the orders of his religion, a glass of 
Bordeaux, and thinks probably the Prophet would not 
have forbidden it had he known the generous wine. 
After dinner he takes a cup of coffee with cognac a la 
franqaise, and indulges then in the sweet " kef," the 
nap indispensable to every Oriental. In the afternoon 
at four o'clock he visits his harem, which is housed in 
a palace of its own, built on the wreck of the former 



MO HAM ED ES S A DOCK PASHA BEY. 31 

harbour of the war-fleet of Carthage ; but this harem 
consists of one wife only and a number of attendants 
and eunuchs. Mohamed es Sadock Pasha Bey — this 
is his full title — occupies himself in his leisure hours 
with the reading of Arabian books, and photography, 
in which he has attained a certain dexterity. He used 
to be in former times lavish to excess. No European 
whom he received in audience left him without 
presents. I myself received a costly enamelled silver 
clasp and his portrait from his hand ; he used to 
present the Consuls with splendid palaces ; the 
costliest weapons, harnesses, saddles, and suits of 
armour studded with precious stones were given to 
European monarchs, and only two years ago he 
presented the King of Spain with a magnificent 
Arabian horse, and sent to the Crown Prince of 
Austria the Grand Cross of the Order of Nishan 
Iftikar in brilliants, the latter of the value of 25,000 
francs. But since Mustapha Ben Ismail has become 
his Minister, this latter has thought it to his own 
interest to keep the Bey's liberality within bounds. 

Besides the Prime Minister, the Bey's immediate 
surroundings consist of the three Imams — that is to 
say, priests — a corps of three adjutant-generals, nine 
colonels, five majors, three dragomans, two Italian 
physicians, one corps of irregular horse-guards, which 
always accompanies the Bey, and a second one — the 
Hamba — under the command of Aga Sidi Hussein, 
which forms his palace guard. The highest religious 
authority is the Sheik -ul- Islam, Sidi Mohamed 
Muania, whose influence and power is about equal to 
a cardinal's in strictly Catholic countries. As a proof 



32 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

of this I will cite the case of a victim from the 
immediate circle of the Bey. Lieutenant-Colonel X., 
who is also Master of the Household, and whom the 
Europeans call Signor Naso, thought of annexing the 
fortune of a man who had left it to the " Chbess," or 
treasury of the Church. X. was brought before the 
Ecclesiastical Court, consisting of the Muftis and the 
Sheik-ul-Islam, which deprived him of all he possessed, 
including dignities and decorations. He was then 
placed in the pillory, where all the passers-by had to 
spit at him. After this he was banished to the Isle 
of Dsherba, known for its unwholesome climate. 
Fortunately for him, Mustapha Ben Ismail, who is 
distantly related to him, came into power a few months 
after. He was then recalled at once, to reassume his 
military and — culinary dignities and functions, which 
he still discharges with skill. 

In all worldly things the Bey is highest and 
absolute judge. Every Saturday he distributes 
justice publicly in a large hall at Goletta, or in winter 
in the Bardo, and his subjects who wish to see him, 
or who want disputes adjusted between them, may 
come there to lay their complaints before him. 
Before the sitting of this Court a levee takes place 
for Ministers, officers, and officials. All princes, 
including the brother of the B<y, then gather round 
him and kiss in succession his right hand. 

I was surprised to see the thoroughly Oriental 
function of pipe-stopper discharged by a European in 
a dress coat and white necktie. I heard afterwards 
that this custom dates from the great Hamuda, an 
ancestor of the Bey's, who is looked upon by the 



MOHAMED ES SAD OCR PASHA BEY. 33 

Tunisians just as Harun-al-Rashid was by the Bagdad 
people. After a glorious reign of thirty-two years, 
Hamuda died of poisoned tobacco, which a pipe- 
stopper had put into the " tshibuk." 

The Bey hates women, and even his relations with 
his only wife are very slight. He calls on her once 
a day at her castle ; but though he stays an hour, 
he scarcely ever sees her. The hour of his visit is 
generally the one appointed by Mohammedans for 
devotions, and on his arrival he generally goes to a 
small room in the palace to pray. 



34 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 

THOUGH m regard to size and the number of its 
inhabitants Tunis is, amongst the towns of Africa, 
only second to Cairo, and though it has no equal 
in antiquity or historical reminiscences on that con- 
tinent, it is entirely void of those grand monuments 
of Moorish architecture and Moorish splendour which 
are so numerous in Southern Spain, and even in 
Algiers and Morocco. In vain do we look for a 
palace or a mosque which could in the least compare 
with the buildings of Seville or Tlemsau. We find 
some pretty mosques, grand palaces, and distributed 
here and there some costly fragments of Moorish 
architecture ; but nowhere has the style been pre- 
served pure. The old, beautiful masterpieces of art 
have fallen into ruins, and nobody heeds ; and in the 
new buildings the French taste predominates in an 
obtrusive, unpleasant way, which can only be regretted. 
Through the many Moorish edifices which have been 
raised in our time in Europe, such as the splendid 
Turkish baths, synagogues, etc., we obtain quite a 
foretaste of the East ; but on arriving there, the real 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 35 



home of this architecture, bitter disappointment awaits 
us. To see it in its full splendour, it is almost better 
to-day to stay in Europe instead of going to the Orient. 
East and West seem to have exchanged tastes. In 
Europe, Moorish buildings, Oriental carpets, houses 
with Turkish and Persian furniture ; in the East, and 
especially in North Africa, European culture clumsily 
ingrafted on an Oriental stem, and instead of walking 
on Persian carpets through the midst of those pro- 
ductions of the East which we have seen in dream-like 
visions, we find Parisian varnish, Parisian patchouli, 
cheap paper-hangings, and dreadful engravings. The 
Arabian is just like all other half-civilised people. I 
once saw a half-naked negro in Hayti with an apron 
round his loins, wearing a high hat and an old waist- 
coat. The same kind of incongruity is to be found in 
North Africa in a hundred similar if not as conspicuous 
examples. The Arabian, especially if intelligent, who 
has any communication with Europeans and wishes 
to affect superiority, will furnish his house in European 
taste and partly adopt European dress ; his civilisation 
begins outside without penetrating any farther, but 
as his Oriental inclinations are sure to come to the 
surface, the result is a sad want of taste, which meets 
us at every step throughout Barbary. Of all the 
large towns of the Orient, Tunis has best preserved its 
character. Here the coquetry with European articles 
only begins with the grandees and Jews. The late 
Achmet Bey, who in 1846 was the first Eastern prince 
to tread European soil, and who was lionised at the 
French Court, was the first who, dazzled by the 
splendour of the Tuileries, wished to change his 



36 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

capital into a second Paris. His picturesque Arabian 
troops had to be put into French uniforms ; his 
magnificent palaces were turned into Paris residences. 
From this time dates the pernicious European in- 
fluence on the external character of this beautiful 
Moorish town. 

The palaces of the reigning Bey are a striking 
example of this. It is very interesting to stroll 
through these castles, the bulwarks of Moorish culture 
and magnificence, and notice the breaches for which 
Europe is answerable. Amongst the Bey's palaces 
in and near Tunis the Bardo is the greatest and most 
important — a Versailles, or rather a Windsor of 
Tunis, but surpassing both these in size. Situated 
in an extensive plain, about an hour from the gates 
of the capital, this thoroughly Oriental palace makes 
an imposing impression on the visitor. Large facades, 
terraces, balconies, bow-windows, towers, and veran- 
dahs unite in picturesque form, though every wing, 
almost every floor, a different period and style, and 
every addition is the legacy of one of the Tunisian 
rulers, who, in the course of centuries, have resided 
here. 

This conglomeration of palaces is surrounded by 
a deep intrenchment, and forms a kind of fortified 
town by itself, which looks all the more imposing, as 
neither house nor tree are to be seen near it. 

Provided with the Amr-Bey — that is to say, an 
order of the Bey — our carriages might have gone 
right into the palace. We preferred, however, to 
alight in the front courtyard, a large place, in the 
middle of which there was a pretty bronze fountain 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 3 J 

in the Renaissance style, throwing up a large jet of 
water, which is very refreshing in this dry, dusty 
neighbourhood. Just opposite to us is the principal 
entrance of the Bardo, protected by a massive watch- 
tower. Behind it, waves on a high flag-staff, the 
particoloured standard of the Bey with its many 
emblems. To the left, between the tower and the 
piled-up palace fronts, we see through iron bars a 
separate yard in which a battery of light cannon 
is mounted, whose muzzles are directed towards us. 
This is a present from the King of Italy to the 
Bey, for the Tunisian army knows no cannon. 
Between them, sentries walk up and down, knitting 
in hand, or they crouch on the floor, leaning their 
guns against the wall. This part is the barracks, 
of the infantry battalion which forms the garrison 
of the Bardo. It also contains the so-called military 
school which sends forth the officers of the army, 
and also the military prison. In a corner of the 
intrenchment a lonely palm-tree rocks to and fro ; 
its old, lofty stem betrays the fact that it has survived 
many a Bey, and seen many a Vizier fall ! 

We pass between the sentries of the entrance-gate, 
and have before us a long, straight road, just broad 
enough for one carriage. Imposing marble palaces 
rise on the left, built of costly material, partly in 
the Renaissance, partly in the Oriental style ; their 
gates are richly embellished, and they have either 
high windows with green Venetian blinds or pro- 
jecting convex trellises ; these are the palaces of the 
princes of the reigning house, and of the Minister, 
who, according to Oriental custom, must always 



38 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

reside in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
Regent 

And opposite these magnificent residences, a few 
steps from their gates, we see a long row of common 
shops with an arcade in front, a true Eastern bazaar 
for the inhabitants of this town of palaces, whose 
number amounts to two thousand when the Court 
of the Bey resides here. At the end of the street, 
about three hundred steps off, we arrive at several 
lonely courtyards, surrounded by a high palace. 
The doors here are small, the windows firmly closed 
by Venetian blinds and lattices ; they contain the 
mysterious apartments of the harem. At last we 
reach the last courtyard ; it takes us to the recep- 
tion-rooms of the Moorish ruler, and we are allowed 
to enter here. This is the famous Lion Courtyard, 
so called from eight rather vicious-looking lions, 
executed in beautiful marble, and placed on the 
landing-places of the broad staircases leading to the 
palace. One side of the courtyard is enclosed by 
a double row of beautiful arcades. There is no 
doubt that they belong to the grandest architectural 
works of art 'in Tunis. The marble blocks which 
form the arches are alternately white and black, and 
rest on splendid columns, monoliths with capitals 
exquisitely veined — evidently found in the ruins of 
the third Carthage, and transferred here. What a 
cheap quarry Carthage was for the Tunisians ! How 
easy to build palaces from such riches ! And these 
stony witnesses of Roman culture again carry a vault 
which is also one of the most magnificent specimens 
of the Moorish style. The same arabesques of stucco- 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 



39 



work which we admire in the Alhambra and in the 
old mosque of Tlemsau, and which, in the delicacy of 
their designs and in the correctness of their execution, 
remind us of the finest lace patterns, form here the 
ceiling, which you never tire of looking at while 




THE BARDO : VIEW OF THE LION'S COURT. 



following the numberless tiny fillets entwisted into 
such an harmonious labyrinth. 

The walls of the colonnades and of the spaces 
opening behind them are up to the ceiling covered 
with those small glazed tiles, also belonging to 



40 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Oriental structures, and which show the cleverness 
and patience of the workmen in the same way as in 
the " Noksh Chadid " of the stucco-work. Every one 
of these little tiles is painted over with delicate orna- 
ments in different colours, although according to the 
same design ; but if compared with each other, it is 
seen that no mould has helped the workmen, but 
that each tile differs from the other in detail, and 
that from beginning to end they are the result of 
arduous, skilful painting by hand. And now think 
of the entire surface of walls, and what is more, the 
miles of high corridors in this accumulation of 
palaces, all covered with such small tiles, and con- 
sider what vast amount of labour is here represented. 
The other fronts of the Lion Courtyard contain 
prisons and smaller courts of justice ; the highest 
tribunal, at the head of which the Bey sits in judg- 
ment, is behind, in one of the most beautiful halls of 
the Orient. We walk through some empty vestibules, 
and enter a high magnificent hall which is divided 
into three parts by rows of marble columns ; at the 
extreme end, on a platform, is the richly-gilt throne 
of the Bey covered by a baldachin. By the side, red 
velvet seats are put for the Ministers and Generals. 
The walls are entirely covered with the costliest 
marble mosaics of all colours, very well preserved. 
Along the walls near the ceiling we see Arabian 
inscriptions — passages from the Koran relating to 
the administration of justice. But here, as in every 
modern Oriental structure, however beautiful, there is 
the commonplace mixed with the sublime. The 
marble columns here — splendid monoliths — were 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 41 

probably found in Carthage without the requisite 
capitals, so that Arabian sculptors put the capitals 
on ; but they chose clumsy pieces of stone, into which 
they cut half-moons and chiselled cannons ! 

Now we are led on again by the captain on guard 
through lonely corridors, empty neglected halls with 
broken floors and shattered windows, till we reach 
the noblest hall in the palace, the throne-room. 
After what we had seen already, we expected to 
behold a Moorish hall, and were therefore not a little 
disappointed to enter one, certainly enormously large 
and high, but furnished in thorough Parisian style ! 
Instead of the lovely carpets manufactured in Tunis, 
we found the floor covered with Parisian productions, 
large-flowered and tasteless ; crystal chandeliers hang 
from the ceilings, French curtains at the windows ; 
and between these long mirrors. The pier-tables 
before them were covered with Rococco-candelabra 
and Sevres vases, and on every table stood also a 
bronze clock with crooked hands. 

On the wall opposite the windows are life-size 
portraits of European monarchs presented to the 
Bey, amongst others a splendid Gobelin, representing 
Louis Philippe. With the exception of a throne and 
baldachin and some red velvet draperies, the room 
contains no furniture. 

The room next to this is reserved for kissing 
hands, a proceeding to be gone through before every 
ceremony, by the princes, ministers, and dignitaries 
of the Bey, as a sign of submission. 

Much more beautiful and splendid than the 
throne-room is the so-called crystal hall, which is 



43 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

reached after another series of desolate passages, 
empty apartments, and various staircases. It is 
smaller than the throne-room, but a Moorish work 
of true art ; the glazed tiles cover both ceiling and 
walls entirely, and are covered with arabesques of 
golden bars, just as we have seen it in the stucco- 
work. The effect is brilliant. A throne and wide 
divans covered with Oriental materials are the only 
furniture. Through the windows, covered with artis- 
tic trellis-work, you look across the landscape on the 
left as far as Tunis and El Bahireh, the bay of the 
town ; on the right are the palm groves and orange 
gardens of Manouba, between which tower the 
stately palaces and villas of Moorish grandees. 

Close by on the right, stands a long building of 
one floor, of rather distinguished appearance. It 
stands in the centre of a garden, and is also sur- 
rounded by walls ; this is the real residence of the 
Bey. He does not like the splendid rooms of the 
Bardo, and leaves them to the princes and his harem. 
Only once a week does he appear there, to sit in 
judgment on his subjects or to receive the Ambassa- 
dors and Consuls of the great powers. Then the 
aspect is changed as by magic. The lonely, deserted 
places, the many courtyards, the entrances before the 
Bardo, and the whole street down to the heart of the 
capital, are teeming with life. Splendid carriages 
abounding in gold and velvet, drawn by richly- 
harnessed mules, bring the Moorish nobles. On 
beautiful, long-tailed horses the chiefs of the Bedouins 
arrive, well-armed and enveloped in their long white 
bornouse ; the body-guard of the Bey, in their red 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 



43 



uniforms, with their lances and scimitars, march to 
the music of the Turkish bands ; the Ministers and 
Generals in splendid uniforms, covered with stars, 
come with a suite of adjutants and servants, one after 
the other ; and the whole way is covered with people 
on horseback, pedestrians and camel-caravans, who 
all want to reach the Bardo for this one day. At 
such times the Oriental Court, of which Tunis is the 
residence, presents a stately picture. But it is only an 
external brilliancy, and it cannot deceive the visitor as 
to the misery reigning inside this Moorish Empire. 




In the capital the Bey only possesses one palace, 
the Dar-el-Bey, distinguished for its magnificent in- 
terior. This is situated in the upper part of the 
town — the Faubourg St. Germains of Tunis — and 
round it are the palaces of the Tunisian grandees. 

While one of the guards at the gate takes our 
written permission to visit Dar-el-Bey and fetches 
the commander of the castle, we inspect the outside ; 
it is also a building of one floor with high windows, 
extends along the whole square, and is surmounted 
by a flag-staff. From the simple Italian architecture 
we are not prepared to find the magnificent ara- 
besques with which the inside is ornamented in a 
fairy-like manner. The commandant, followed by a 
number of aides-de-camp, took us first through a 
high gate into a large court or " patio " encircled by 
simple arcades, and from there by a broad marble 
staircase into the first and only floor. Through two 
large halls, furnished in European style, which, dur- 
ing the short time the Tunisian Constitution lasted, 



44 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

served as Chamber of Deputies and for the Senate 
respectively, we reached a " patio " with graceful 
arches, composed of white and black marble blocks, 
which rest on sixteen white columns of the same 
material, and support a roof of glass. Round this 
" patio " are small rooms for the Bey's Ministers 
and adjutants, again with European furniture, little 
harmonising with the truly magnificent Moorish 
decorations on wall and ceiling. Already the round 
hall of the former Senate possesses a dome of which 
the arabesques can be compared, without hesitation, 
to the most wonderful works of the Moors in 
Granada and Seville. The circumstance that this 
dome has been restored only in the present century 
shows that the traditions of Moorish architecture 
have been preserved in all their purity, and that 
we might still expect most beautiful edifices if the 
pernicious influence of Europe, and the mania of the 
Tunisian rich for Parisian luxury and Parisian style 
were not so predominant. And how much more 
beautiful is this delicate net -work, so fanciful, and 
yet so regular, than even the most lovely decoration 
of ceilings *n Europe. The more I got absorbed in 
these arabesques, the more I admired them, the 
more beautiful did they appear, the more did they 
seem a misty veil through which I seemed to look 
into another world. Just as charming and seductive 
is the ornamentation of the smaller rooms of the 
"patio;" painted glass tiles with the most beautiful 
ornamentation, coloured wood mosaic and lovely 
stucco-work cover here also walls and ceiling, and 
give us an idea of what charming places these 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 45 

might be if a morbid taste had not replaced 
Oriental carpets, divans and Moorish tables by 
Rococco easy-chairs, a lot of gilt clocks and cheap 
lithographs. 

We might easily fancy ourselves at a Parisian 
hotel on the Boulevard when we enter these apart- 
ments ; only waiter and chambermaid are wanting. 
This last suite of rooms is generally offered to 
foreign princes while staying here ; and Prince 
Charles of Prussia occupied them some years ago. 
After passing another suite of small Oriental rooms 
we arrive at last at a hall which, excepting the floor, 
is entirely of crystal, and is, with its divans and 
easy-chairs, half Oriental, half European. In a small 
side -chamber we see a bed with yellow damask 
hangings. These two apartments are the Bey's 
private ones ; he spends his days here during the 
Rhamadan. But at night he always returns to his 
villa in Manouba, for only once a year does he sleep 
in this capital, that is on the third night of the 
Beyram feast. 

In summer the ruler of Tunis resides in a charm- 
ing little villa close by the shore, between the ruins 
of Carthage, the old Roman colony, and Goletta. 
Towards Goletta the residence of the Bey is closed 
in by fortifications and cannons, and the stranger 
who comes from Europe, and generally lands in 
Goletta, does not expect to find the Bey's residence 
inside this modern fortress. Sentries, batteries of 
cannon, casemates, and piles of bullets have to be 
passed, and at last the pretty villa is seen with the 
Bey's standard over it. The arrangements inside 



46 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and the furniture are of the latest European fashion. 
The palace of his consort is, on the other hand, 
furnished in the Oriental style, surrounded by a 
beautiful garden, and is only a quarter of an hour 
distant The reservoirs and ponds in this garden, 
which is studded with graceful palm and almond trees, 
were once the harbour of the Carthaginians. This 
palace also stands close to the shore, and the Princess 
can, from her rooms, descend direct into the sea. 

From Goletta, the lovely gulf, in its grandeur 
only comparable with the Bay of Naples, can be 
seen in its entire extent, and opposite lies the 
watering-place, which, like every large place in 
Tunis, contains a Dar-el-Bey — a castle for the Bey. 
This palace is also by the sea, and as the Bey stays 
here several weeks in the year, there is a very good 
road leading to it. The complex of buildings which 
belong to the Dar-el-Bey is very extensive, but not 
beautiful. Colossal walls, bow -windows, galleries, 
gates, and terraces recall the Bardo, but are yet 
more desolate. The only charm about it consists 
in the windows and bow-windows, distributed quite 
irregularly about the immense front ; they are some- 
times large, sometimes small, and always locked and 
provided with close railings, so that a harem might 
be suspected there ; but this is not the case. This 
giant caravansary stands quite empty when the Bey 
leaves it, and even the furniture and carpets are 
removed every year after his departure. This palace 
is only inhabitable when the Bey and his Court are 
coming ; then all gets lively. But from the day of 



THE PALACES OF THE BEY. 4) 

his departure until the following year it serves cattle 
for stabling, and gangs of strolling Bedouins for 
night quarters. The costly ornamented sleeping- 
chambers are then full of incredible dirt ; in the 
broad corridors and up in the garret-floors heaps of 
rotten straw lie about. Doors and windows are 
broken, the walls dirty, the beautiful marble slabs on 
the floor torn up. And all this notwithstanding that 
many people are paid to keep the palace in order. 
Before the Bey arrives the palace is renovated all 
through ; everything gets whitewashed or painted ; 
windows are provided with new shutters, doors with 
new locks — in one word a stable is turned into a 
palace, of course at an enormous cost. How much 
cheaper and simpler it would be to lock the gates 
and to put sentries before it ! But they follow here, 
as in all countries once under Turkish rule, the good 
old custom. It is to be supposed that the Bey 
knows nothing of the management of his possessions. 
Before him all is splendour, behind his back — 
desolate ruin ! 

This unbounded negligence shows itself most in 
the provincial castles of the Bey ; for instance, in 
Biserta, Porta Farina, and Zaghnan. These " palaces," 
much smaller and rather paltry here, are literally 
heaps of ruins, and the impression they make on 
Europeans is all the more sad as these ruins are 
modern, the result of Oriental carelessness, not of 
old age. The Bey never came but rarely into the 
provinces, but during the last twenty years has not 
come at all, so that these " douar " are now scarcely 
inhabitable. It were well for them if the Bey came 



48 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE, 

every week ; they would have to be kept in ordei 
then. Besides the above-named palaces, there are 
in Tunis and its environs several others of colossal 
dimensions and great beauty. But on inquiry they 
turn out to be the palaces of former Beys, given by 
their successors to the foreign Consuls or to Tunisian 
favourites. According to a Tunisian custom, a 
reigning Bey must not live in a palace where one 
of his predecessors died. As, notwithstanding this, 
none of them had himself transported into the street 
on death approaching, the consequence is that there 
are more than a dozen palaces in Tunis to-day which 
cannot be used by the Beys. Where w^uld this 
lead to in England or France if for each sovereign a 
new Windsor or Versailles had to be built ! The 
saddest example of this modern Vandalism is 
Mohamedia, once the magnificent residence of 
Achmet Bey, who had it built about thirty- five 
years ago at a cost of 10,000,000 francs. This 
palace, with its secondary buildings and villas for 
Ministers and dignitaries, was situated two miles out 
of town, and when Achmet Bey died, the furniture 
was moved, tfce floors, glazed tiles, doors and windows, 
were broken out and dragged to another palace. 
The heavy marble columns, statues, the curbs of the 
wells, etc., remained behind with the walls, and he 
who passes these imposing ruins to-day might think 
thousands of years have passed over them. The 
hand of the Arar destroys thus in our day in the 
midst of peace, as his ancestors, the Vandals, did 
centuries ago, only in times of war ! So much foi 
Oriental culture ! 



MUNICIPALITY AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 49 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MUNICIPALITY AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 

While wandering through the capital as well as 
through the rest of the Regency, I asked myself how 
it could be possible to manage State and capital with 
the existing local authorities, and what sort of 
institutions there must be here to keep society in 
order. It could be easily seen that the authorities 
were incapable. Law, authority, honesty, and impar- 
tiality seemed not to exist. Money is the law-giving 
force, the executive power in the State, and if matters 
have remained the same through centuries up to the 
present day, it is owing to the mightiest moving 
power in Oriental States — to religion. Religion 
alone sustains the aged, rotten structure, after being 
partly answerable for its decay. Whoever wishes to 
travel to the East cheaply and comfortably, had 
better read the Koran ; it gives a better insight into 
the manners and customs of the Orientals than long 
voyages and personal contemplation can do. Religion 
and religious authorities and societies with their 
instructions are the principal factors, not only for the 
individual and families, but for whole communities. 

£2 



50 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Latterly the foreign powers were induced to say a 
word, through their Consuls in Tunis, in matters not 




CAKE-SELLER. 



only concerning the affairs of the State, but also in re- 
gard to municipal conditions, they had to help and pull 



MUNICIPALITY AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 51 

the wheels of the State machine out of the mire, so 
that it should not sink entirely. The result was that 
the municipality of this capital of 1 30,000 inhabitants 
had to submit to a thorough reform, and its authority 
got somewhat limited. Then came foreign specu- 
lators, who, at their own risk, undertook to execute 
works which the civil authorities ought to have 
undertaken themselves, but which in that case might 
have waited for centuries — for instance, the lighting 
of the town. Keeping to the ways of the Middle 
Ages as the Orient does, the idea of lighting up the 
town would not have entered their heads. Whoever 
wanted to go out at night had to take his own lantern, 
and to this day the whole Arabian town, with the 
exception of a few principal streets, is wrapt in total 
darkness, and Europeans have to carry their lanterns, 
while the European quarter is lit by gas, which was 
introduced by an English company. Some solitary 
rich Moors had gas-lamps attached to their houses, but 
the people know nothing as yet of this innovation. 

The same happened with the water. All the 
town depended till some years ago on the water from 
the cisterns, which was often dried up during a hot 
summer, and exposed the people to all sorts of 
dangers. Now the old enormous waterworks of 
Carthage still exist, and for centuries the Tunisians 
could see where fresh spring-water could be found, 
yet amongst the millions of Mohammedans to not a 
single one did the idea occur that with little money 
these waterworks could be got into working order 
and the town benefited immensely. Again it was 
reserved for Europeans to convey the Roman sources 



52 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

of Zaguan into Tunis, and to provide the town with 
excellent drinking-water, which flows now from many- 
wells erected in different streets. Two or three years 
ago this good work was threatened by neglect, and it 
required again the interference of the European 




BREAD-SELLERS. 



Consuls, who had large reservoirs built in the upper 
town near the Kasba, and also a sort of water-tanks. 
The architect chose, by-the-bye, the well-preserved 
reservoirs of Carthage for a pattern. 

It is the same with cleansing of streets and places, 



MUNICIPALITY AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. $1 

and with the municipal buildings, etc. Everywhere 
the Consuls are wanted to keep the town in order, or 
at least to make it inhabitable from a sanitary point 
of view. 

In a street, clean and well paved, north of the 
Kasba, there stands amongst old Moorish palaces 
a small, plain -looking house. A long ante -room, 
crowded with people, leads to a narrow staircase, at 
the top of which there are some rooms mostly empty. 
In an adjoining " patio " covered with a roof of glass 
stands a long table with two or three books and some 
inkstands, at which two officials are working. This 
building is the mansion-house of Tunis. Here in 
these empty rooms is the seat of the civil authorities, 
the residence of the president of the administration 
and of his officials. Simplicity in all matters of 
business is certainly a great virtue, but in Tunis this 
simplicity goes a little too far. The three books 
which I saw on the above-mentioned table are at the 
same time the archives of Tunis, for if every piece of 
furniture were turned inside out, and the whole house 
demolished, not another piece of paper would be 
found, not another book, not even a map of the town. 
It is true that the business and sphere of action of 
the administrative body is very limited, as there are 
no municipal institutions and no public buildings to 
manage, gas and water scarcely exist, not even a 
fire-brigade. Even the cleansing of the streets is not 
in the hands of the turbaned mayor. For this 
purpose a special association exists. Morning and 
night they send men with carts and, where carts 
cannot enter, on foot to clean the streets, and as 



54 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

there are no drains whatever, they have enough to do 
All possible and impossible dirt is thrown by the 
inhabitants before their doors into the street. From 
a tax of six piastres (four francs), which every family 
has to pay per year to the municipality, this street- 
cleaning company is paid. There are also commis- 
sioners whose duty it is to go from door to door to 
inspect the cess-pools, which are used in Tunis instead 
of sewers. If these sinks are not in a proper state, 
they have a right to have them cleaned at the cost of 
the house-owner. 

The cost of paving the streets is defrayed from 
the tax which carriages pay, and which amounts to a 
revenue of 30,000 to 40,000 piastres yearly. Of 
course by this, only the streets of the European 
quarter and two or three of the Arabian parts are 
meant, as driving is impossible in the others. Before 
the introduction of this carriage-tax, which concerns 
principally the Maltese drivers, who have the driving 
business almost entirely in their hands, the preserva- 
tion of the streets was incumbent upon the Chbess or 
mosque funds, which possesses in Tunis enormous 
riches. This Chbess, superintended by a committee 
of " Ulemmas," consists partly of ready money, partly 
of landed property, which latter according to law may 
never be sold, though, with the permission of the Bey, 
it is allowed to change them for estates of equal 
value. But if a saint should happen to be buried 
there, the ground must never be touched, but must 
remain in the same state, even if situated in the 
centre of commercial intercourse or before the palace 
of the Bey. These estates of the Chbess are one of 



MUNICIPALITY AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 55 

the greatest hindrances to the free development of 
the town ; they explain the existence of the innumer- 
able ruins and of the crooked lanes. So long as this 
law is not altered, Tunis will have neither sewers, 
straight streets, nor other improvements known to 
modern towns. The many tombstones and painted 
sarcophagi, which you see sometimes in the middle of 
lively streets, belong to this sacred property, and woe 
to him who touches them ! A Jew who some years 
ago put his foot on one of them to lace his shoe was 
instantly killed by fanatical Mussulmans. 

Religious intolerance is altogether one of the 
chief characteristics of Tunisians. Woe to him who 
only contemplates a mosque ! I myself witnessed a 
fanatic throw vitriol over a German lady while she 
was sketching a group of houses, he labouring under 
the impression that she was drawing a mosque. 

There is in Tunis but one hospital ; it only holds 
a hundred people and is therefore quite insufficient ; 
generally poor people only take refuge there, and as 
the place is really kept well and clean, in which latter 
quality the Arabs are entirely deficient, every new- 
comer, however ill, has to submit to a thorough 
cleansing whether it agrees with him or not. The 
hospital physicians are mostly Tunisians, graduated 
in medical colleges in Algiers or even in Paris. The 
women are housed in a separate part of the building. 

The ground-floor is the lunatic asylum of Tunis, 
where raving madmen are put. As is well known, 
harmless lunatics are considered saints in all Mo- 
hammedan countries, and are under no constraint 
whatever. 



56 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

All matters concerning schools in Tunis are al- 
most entirely in the hands of the Ulemmas and 
Muftis. Every mosque has a Koran class, in which 
the Koran is taught to little boys mechanically. 

The Arabian university is in the holy town of 
Kairwan, but nothing else but the Koran is taught 
there. Kereddin, however, one of the most intelli- 
gent of modern Tunisians, succeeded several years ago 
in founding an Arabian academy — the College Sadiki 
— which is maintained by the confiscated fortune of 
Mustaph Chasnadar, a former Prime Minister, and 
father-in-law of Kereddin. The college programme 
comprises seven annual courses of lectures, and there 
is such a great number of students that for the next 
few years there will be no vacancies. Instruction 
(principally by European professors), dress, excellent 
board and lodging, are all paid for from this fund, and 
no school in the East can be compared in excellence 
to the College Sadiki. The subjects taught are the 
same as in a European gymnasium ; and I found 
from personal inquiries in the different classes, that 
the pupils do indeed acquire great knowledge, which 
will contribute, more than anything else to the aboli- 
tion of prejudices and of religious intolerance in the 
course of time. By founding this school, Kereddin 
has shown great wisdom and discernment, and it is 
only to be regretted that he had to cede the reins 
of office to the intriguer who is to-day Minister and 
favourite of the Bey I 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NA VY. 57 



CHAPTER VI. 

CURIOSITIES IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
TUNISIAN ARMY AND NAVY. 

The ancient mightiness of this once dreaded piratical 
State has been broken long since, and while it was 
yet feared towards the end of the last century by 
even the strongest states of the Mediterranean, it only 
excites pity to-day. 

My first acquaintance with their heroes I made 
immediately after my landing in Goletta, the harbour 
of Tunis. There stood a Tunisian guard before a 
sentry-box. His dress consisted of a black jacket 
with red braid, black trousers reaching to the middle 
of the calf, a red fez with a brass shield, and (prob- 
ably) a shirt. He wore yellow kid slippers, and by 
his side, in a leather sheath, dangled a sabre, which 
had no point, and his gun — leaning against the 
sentry-box — exhibited a rusty percussion lock. The 
man himself had a stocking in his hand, which he 
was knitting. An officer passed him, when he put 
aside his stocking, took up his gun and presented 
arms, after which he put it in the corner again, from 
which proceeding I concluded that the feminine 



58 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

occupation of knitting is allowed him also when on 
duty. Before the War and Marine Ministries, the 
sentries idled about in the same way, and even in the 
capital before the palace of the Bey the sentries were 
knitting stockings. The best of it was, that not a 
single soldier wore stockings. In the streets of the 
large town you meet here and there patrols ; and 
there are soldiers on guard before the gates of the 
town, but all are dressed in the same miserable 
uniform. Not a jacket, not a pair of trousers are 
sound, and some of their wearing apparel is patched 
to such an extent that the original colour cannot be 
discerned. During my first stroll I chanced to see 
the sentries relieved. According to Mohammedan 
custom, the soldiers had their shoes ranged before 
the arcades of the gate, and sat or laid about on 
straw mats. Some knitted, some twisted hemp-tows, 
others mended shoes. One or two horse-soldiers, 
who could only be distinguished from the others by 
gaiters and their rusty trailing sabres, leant sleepily 
against a barrier. Suddenly a blast of trumpets and 
such a roll of drums were heard in a side street that 
I thought a* whole infantry regiment was coming. 
But it was only a small procession of soldiers with 
two officers and about a dozen musicians. The men 
on guard rose slowly, put aside their knitting and 
other work, betook themselves to their slippers, and 
stood up in two rows without a commanding word 
from the officer. The trumpeters of the new guard 
turned, put themselves at the head of the retiring 
troop, and away they went with a noise as if the 
weal of Tunis depended on these trumpets. When 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NAVY. 59 

marching, these soldiers make even a more miserable 
impression, as their shuffling slippers do not allow 
them to walk properly. Shoes which fit are detested 
by Orientals, and as the habits of the country re- 
quire often that shoes be left behind — for instance, 
if you enter a room or shop, which you have to do 
in stockings or barefoot — these warriors, from ser- 
geants downwards, change their shoes into slippers 
by treading them down at the heels. The offi- 
cers get over the difficulty by wearing two pairs 
of boots, of which the one pair represents the 
stockings. 

All these observations I had the opportunity of 
making while visiting Dar-el-Bey, at that time 
uninhabited by the ruler. Here also there were a 
number of soldiers on guard ; one took our " order 
to view," and went away with it, soon after returning 
with three officers without arms, a major, and two 
captains, of whom the former carried a bunch of 
keys. All three took me through the place them- 
selves. On leaving I wished to shake their hands 
with thanks, but Karoubi, my dragoman, remarked : 
" Don't you give them a gratuity ? " 

" A gratuity ? To whom ? " 

" To the major," said Karoubi innocently. 

" A gratuity ? To a major ? " I had scarcely 
money enough in my pocket to reward a high officer 
worthily. 

"Give him two francs!" said Karoubi again. I 
put three francs into the major's hand, and looked 
rather perplexed while I took off my hat. But the 
major and the two captains accompanied me to the 



60 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

door, and always bowed afterwards whenever they 
met me. . 

All these strange events awakened my curiosity 
as to the position and circumstances of the Tunisian 
army. Thanks to the intervention of an influential 
friend, I soon obtained an "Amr-Bey" — that is, an 
order from the Bey — which not only opened all 
barracks and military institutions for my inspection, 
but also raised me to the dignity of a colonel (Amir 
Alay) pro tern. Through this Amr-Bey I soon got 
an insight into the military system. The mismanage- 
ment of it cannot be laid at the door of the Bey, as, 
according to the curious custom of the East, he has 
no knowledge of it. The First Minister in Moham- 
medan states is the real ruler, and his master only 
hears what he allows him to hear. The Minister is 
always, and under all circumstances, present at the 
audiences ; if the Minister is ill, the Bey gives none. 
I mention this so as to put the person of the Bey in 
the proper light in regard to the mismanagement 
and depredations of his subjects. 

About the organisation of the army little is 
known. The. Almanac de Gotha gives us seven 
regiments of infantry, four of artillery, and a division 
of cavalry, with a total strength of 20,000 men. 
According to the information, however, which I got 
from the Ministry of War in Tunis, there are only 
five regiments of infantry, and one of artillery. The 
cavalry is only to be found on paper. In reality it 
consists of a few colonels and twenty men without 
horses. The real total number of troops — comprising 
the whole army — is about two or three thousand 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NA VY. 61 

men, of whom one thousand are garrisoned in the 
capital, and the rest in the province. 1 

On the ministerial lists I only found the officers 
mentioned, while the total strength of the troops was 
utterly unknown to them. For this army there are 
about ioo generals and iooo officers of all degrees, 
from a lieutenant of fourteen years (Molass) up to a 
colonel, who as a rule served the Bey formerly as 
pages, and did all sorts of services for him, of which 
the details cannot be recorded here, but for which 
they got promoted without ever having seen a gun 
or drum. There is no military school, unless the 
harem be considered as such. Of the officers emerg- 
ing therefrom, some remain in the household of the 
Bey, others are employed in the ministries, and the 
greatest number are put into the army invested with 
the same rank to their last day, promotion being 
very rare. 

The pay of this valiant army is equivalent to its 
services — that is to say, a little more than nothing. 
All officers as well as the rank and file receive from 
the Government board and lodging, and are also 
clothed, and receive besides a nominal pay, 2 which 
would be sufficient for the modest wants of Orientals 



1 The garrisons of the regular army are those of Tunis, Sfax, Monastir, 
Susa, Kernan, Gafsa, and Gabes. 

2 According to the lists shown me, the monthly pay is as follows : 
— The general of division (Ferik) gets 1060 piastres ; the major- 
general (Liwa) 115. The colonel (Amir Alay) 250 piastres; the 
lieutenant-colonel (Kaimakam) 125, the major about 100, the captain 
50, the lieutenant 24, the sergeant-major 12, the sergeant 8, the 
oubarski 6, and the soldier 5 piastres per month. But the pay is 
sometimes in arrear for several months, and even sometimes for years, 
and under the most favourable circumstances it is never paid in full. 



62 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

if they really got their pay, their board, and their 
clothes. The proper accounts are handed in no doubt, 
but the money goes through the hands of so many 
generals, colonels, and captains, that of the pay 
nothing remains, of the clothing only rags, and of 
their board, bread and bad oil. 

Armed with my Amr-Bey, I also paid a visit to 
the barracks, accompanied by two German cavalry 
officers, with whom I made several other excursions 
in the neighbourhood of Tunis. Our visit had been 
announced to the commanding officer from the 
Ministry, and when we arrived with our dragomans 
at the infantry barracks all the soldiers got under 
arms (as far as there were any arms) to give me the 
honour due to a colonel. The barracks themselves, 
situated near the Kasba and adjoining the walls of 
the town, form such a stately building and are in 
such good repair that you might think European 
soldiers live in them. There is room enough for 
1 5 oo men. They are built in a square, have only a 
ground floor, and surround an extensive, well-paved 
courtyard. In the centre of this latter there is a 
covered fountain with excellent water, which serves 
not only for drinking purposes but also for the 
ablutions prescribed for every prayer. The four 
sides of the yard are formed by fine Byzantine 
archways, with broad galleries. Under every arch is 
the entrance to a long narrow dormitory, of which 
there are at least 150 with room for twelve to 
fifteen men, though scarcely half that number is 
housed here. The commanding officer, who is a 
colonel, accompanied by a major and some aides-de- 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NA VY. 63 

camp (who are at the same time the indoor servants 
and boots of their superiors) went with us over the 
place. Every dormitory was furnished all round the 
wall with a wooden bench, without either pillow or 
mattress, or even linen, the only covering being an 
old torn cloak ; here and there a rusty sabre or a 
gun was hanging. The linen and clothes they stood 
in was all they possessed. Their uniform of black 
cloth with red braid, and fez with brass shield, have 
been mentioned before. In summer they get uniforms 
of canvas instead of cloth. The distinctions are 
little stars on the collars, and little brass shields. 
We also saw the dormitory of the musicians, who had 
their strange instruments — which are ornamented 
with horse-tails and little flags ! — on the board at 
their head. The commander assured us that the 
soldiers were drilled in the yard for an hour daily, 
and offered to let them perform before us ; but we 
declined, with thanks, having regard for the miserable 
appearance of these poor fellows. On leaving the 
barracks the military honours shown us on enter- 
ing were repeated, and we could see how pleased 
the officers were to come off the inspection so 
cheaply. 

Our next visit was to the forts, artillery depots, 
and arsenal. The latter is situated outside the town, 
on the way to the Bey's castle, and was a castle once 
itself. We drove through the heavy gates of the 
town, mounted with cannon, into the open country ; 
then along between the Mohammedan graveyards, 
and under the majestic arches of the old aqueduct of 
Carthage, till we saw before us the imposing complex 



64 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

of houses forming the arsenal of Tunis. The build- 
ings, situated on two terraces, lying one above the 
other, are surrounded by a high wall ; but the roads 
leading there, in which even our light carriages 
penetrated up to the axles, did not seem to us fit 
for artillery transports. But we found out afterwards 
that such a transport had not passed here for the 
last century. Our reception was the same by the 
commander and his officers in full dress : the same 
military honours, only that we were taken to the 
General's reception-room, where coffee was handed 
in little cups. The old rusty ordnance on the walls 
round the town, and a light battery of six guns — the 
latter a present from Victor Emmanuel — was all the 
artillery the kingdom of Tunis consisted of. Some 
howitzers, mortars, breechloaders, are also mostly the 
presents of European sovereigns, especially from 
Louis Philippe. Rules and regulations there are 
none ; the officers did not even understand us when 
we asked what these were. We also noticed that 
there were no bronze cannon, but our dragoman 
explained that this was on account of the great intrinsic 
value of bronze, and the high price Tunisian Jews pay 
for it The bronze material had simply been sold ! 

After we had sipped our coffee the commander 
took us first into a large hall in the front building, 
where some thousands of muskets and sabres, as well 
as several hundreds of bayonets and pistols, were 
erected into trophies in a very striking way ; but all 
these weapons dated from centuries ago. They 
had wide muzzles, and percussion and match locks. 
All looked clean and polished on the outside, but as 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NA VY. 65 

soon as we took down a musket we discovered the 
dirt and rust which covered lock and barrel. Neither 
had the sabres and pistols the least historical or 
intrinsic value, or they would have disappeared long 
ago. 1 

After inspecting this hall, and having been shown 
some very old Turkish cannon, and mortar tubes, 
without carriages, the commander seemed to wish to 
get rid of us. But we wanted to see more : so we 
were taken through the barracks and courtyards, 
which were empty, and were at least distinguished 
by great cleanliness — a circumstance which cannot 
be valued high enough amongst these dirty Orientals. 
The magazine of the army-accoutrements of Tunis 
was a small hall with stands against the walls, on 
which some clothes, a few pairs of boots, old pistols, 
trumpets, fez, and flags were ranged. The flags 
were of red silk, and displayed two crossed cannon 
tubes with a grenade each, and were ornamented 
with half-moons. The magazine of a single com- 
pany of Austrian infantry contains more clothes 
than the one belonging to the whole of this funny 
army. 

Another room was filled with the old swords of 
Bedouins, in sheaths of leather or wood with cross- 
barred hilts. However bad and clumsy these swords 
looked, the blades were beautiful, one of them being 
so heavy and large that it could evidently only be 
wielded with two hands. Some dark places — pro- 
bably so kept on purpose — contained a few Bedouin 

1 The only interesting weapon here was a very ancient revolver gun 
with seven chambers, constructed with a flint lock, 

F 



66 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

saddles and covers, the top ones clean and tidy, the 
lower ones torn and dirty. 

I wished to ask several questions as to the calibre 
of the field guns, about the horses, and other matters, 
but my dragoman whispered that they did not 
know it themselves, and I should only perplex them. 
There was only one horse in the stables. In the 
courtyards cannon balls were piled up in pyramids, 
before which an artilleryman walked up and down 
with a very strange -looking weapon. He carried 
what I took for a long spear : but just as I was 
going to ask whether the artillery here were armed 
with spears, I found out that the man carried a 
broom-handle with a bayonet fixed on the top of it. 
This original sentry did not know what to do when 
we passed, as he could not present arms with the 
broomstick, so he simply laid it aside and put his 
hand to his fez to salute us. 

Of ammunition — which, if wanted, is imported 
from Europe — there was in this central depot of the 
Tunisian army no sign. How happy ought this 
country to be that it has to pay so little attention 
to its mearfs of defence ! 

The hills round Tunis are crowned with powerful 
forts with heavy stone walls, big, black cannon look- 
ing out of the loopholes. When Prince Frederick 
Charles of Prussia visited the military institutions of 
Tunis some years ago, the Minister of War, who is 
mightily proud of his forts, asked him seriously if he 
had ever seen stronger forts. The answer of the 
Prussian Field-marshal is unfortunately unknown. 

There are distributed in the province here and 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NAVY, bj 

there small forts, mostly ruined citadels dating from 
the Spanish time, furnished with old iron cannon 
and a couple of hungry-looking soldiers, dressed in 
rags, who have had no pay for years. 

The forts round Tunis are not in quite so bad a 
state ; but this is on account of the foreign officers 
who come now and then as tourists to view the 
military institutions of the Bey. In one of the forts 
a negro is commanding officer. 

Of course there is no question here of a fixed 
length of service or of a regular conscription. This 
is left entirely to the caprice of the Minister of War 
and his officers. Every year information is collected 
at the central office about those young men who 
have attained the age to serve, and who, at the same 
time, are rich enough to buy themselves off. When 
afterwards the recruiting officers pass through the 
country, they have their eye principally on these, 
and they are not let free till they have paid a large 
sum according to their means. This sum is after- 
wards divided between the recruiting officers and the 
Minister of War. As soldiers when once recruited 
have to serve all their life, and are only let off 
through illness or old age, rich young men are only 
too glad to pay large sums, and to renew payment 
when recruiting is repeated. This arbitrary proceed- 
ing of the officers falls heaviest on the townspeople, 
as the nomadic Bedouins from the country are only 
put into the irregular troops, who enjoy more liberties. 

It is seen that the Tunisian soldier is not to be 
envied. Hunger and want are his lot, and there is 
no hope that the internal state of things of the 



68 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Regency will alter as long as this is in Mohammedan 
hands. 

Of greater value than these starved "regular" 
troops without discipline are perhaps the irregular 
Spahis, Zouaves, and Kuruglis ; they are well fitted 
for guerilla warfare ; and in case of surprises, or in 
skirmishes, they might be of use with their Oriental 
weapons. To these would have to be added the 
hordes of Bedouins of the Tell and the Dsherid if 
the Bey should succeed in inflaming them against an 
enemy. But even if he could unite them under one 
command he lacks even for the smallest military ex- 
pedition what is most important — money. 

And now for the Navy, which ought to exist, 
considering that Tunis has a Minister of Marine, a 
great Admiralty in Goletta, and also a naval arsenal. 
But this is even in a worse state than the army. 
The two steamers which the Government bought 
some years ago from an Italian steam navigation 
company for large sums, are useless ; a third one lies 
dry in Porta Farina, and serves as a quarantine 
station. In the naval arsenal nothing is seen but a 
few anchors,' tugs, and large rowing boats ; the finest 
of these latter is generally in use for rowing some 
Consul or other notability across to the steamboats 
of the Italian companies. The twelve sailors who 
then man it, together with two admirals and a few 
captains, form the navy. A good workshop for 
repairs furnished with machines and implements is 
abandoned, and the material is rusty. 

Tunis is to-day just as helpless as at the time of 
Maltzan's travels, and those who compare the de- 



THE TUNISIAN ARMY AND NA VY. 69 

scriptions of the famous traveller with those given 
here will see that the Tunisian rulers have remained 
conservative in their mismanagement This has 
been proved again by the last rising against the 
French. 



7o TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE AND CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 

In no respect does the East show such a contrast to 
Europe as in regard to social life, and it was perhaps 
wrong to put the name of "good society" at the head 
of this chapter. Such a thing exists even less in 
Tunis than in Cairo, Constantinople, or Algiers, 
where European habits in the shape of patent leather 
boots, eye-glasses, dress coats, and white neckties, 
together with the mysteries of the female toilet, have 
made their appearance long ago. The commercial 
and social conquest of the Orient might be compared 
to the storming of fortresses of which many a one 
has fallen victim to a diplomatic and commercial 
army ; only Tunis, the old piratical State, resisted 
these trials with the most passive consistency. It is 
a mighty bulwark, in which the customs of the 
Middle Ages and religious intolerance are the 
commanders who rule over an army as obstinate as 
it is orthodox — viz. the inhabitants of Tunis. At 
the gate of the fortress the Islam keeps watch, and 
rejects every innovation, and every change of what 
has existed for centuries, with the conscientiousness 



CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 71 

of a Prussian custom-house officer. Emancipation of 
women, the press, machinery, free trade, social enter- 
tainments, theatre, sport, dinners, evening parties — 
all stand outside this gate, and neither through 
stratagem nor by force can they obtain an entrance 
into the Mohammedan fortress. Inside the walls 
these innovations would find many a follower, 
especially amongst women, who, ever since Eve's 
time, plot treason ; but the Mohammedan woman is 
too much the slave of habits of the Middle Ages, 
and too much restrained to be of any use to possible 
confederates. 

Perhaps the entry of the French has made a 
difference ; but it is as yet impossible to report 
about the "season of Tunis," to describe sports, 
toilets, etc., for there is no " society," and not 
society's most important and influential element — 
woman. She is in the harem, in these prisons lined 
with gold — she is born and lives and dies in the 
same place. Public life does not exist for her. No 
man ever sees her except her husband and her 
nearest relations, and her husband sees her and 
makes her acquaintance only after marriage ! It is 
a great breach of good manners to ask an Arab 
after his wife and children, and he would look at the 
question in the same light as we should if anybody 
asked us about our wives' most delicate secrets, or 
the amount of our debts, or some other private 
matter. 

Public life, then, is confined to men, even in the 
best society, and that this fact does not make life 
very interesting for them is a matter of course. 



72 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

What would life be for us, say in Vienna, if suddenly 
all ladies were to disappear ? If in our walks, at the 
theatre, at evening parties, we only met men and not 
a single woman ? If at a dinner or reception the 
master of the house were to lock up previously wife 
and daughters, cousins and aunts ! And this year 
by year to the end ? But the worst must be to take 
a wife and to see her only after marriage ! Perhaps 
bachelors might console themselves for a time by 
visiting theatres, restaurants, cafes, all the oftener, or 
by travelling. But if there are no such things as 
theatres, and if in travelling he never meets a woman ? 
Such reflections allow us to see Oriental circumstances 
in their true light, and they do not seem very enviable, 
especially in Tunis. But it would not be quite so 
bad if the Moorish ladies, at least those of the better 
class, possessed the least sense or wit, if they could 
enliven their husband's home in the same way that a 
young European can, when she lives with her husband 
in a snug retired castle. But very few of the ladies 
of the harems can read, or sing, or write, and all they 
can offer is their person. But as the Oriental buys 
the "cat in .the bag," disappointments are often in 
store for him, sufficient to render him cross for the 
rest of his life. 

Tunis possesses neither theatres, nor cafe's, nor 
restaurants in the European sense of the word ; and 
evening parties or other amusements are unknown. 
Therefore it is a puzzle for anybody who visits the 
East for the first time how the Moor passes his time. 
He cannot stay at home, and cannot, on account of 
his harem, receive anybody there except at the gate. 



CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 73 



If he wants to see his friends and acquaintances he 




EVENING PRAYER. 

must go to the bazaar, where he remains the whole 



74 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

day. A few cups of coffee, some cigarettes, a piece 
of meat or cake, eaten standing, with the fingers, is 
sufficient for him for the whole day. Not until the 
evening does he return home, when he takes his meal, 
consisting generally of one or two dishes, alone. 
Then he goes either to a small coffee-house or to 
one of the Hashish caverns to stupefy his brain with 
this intoxicating narcotic, or he is present at one of 
the many orgies which are held in these dens by 
dancers and jugglers of the lowest kind. Or perhaps 
he sits down by some gossip and listens to his tale. 
The greatest part of his time he spends in praying ; 
and he must think it quite a godsend that Mohammed 
has ordered so many prayers daily. They do for 
passing the time, as well as for gymnastics, for, as an 
orthodox Moslem, he has to throw himself forty times 
unto the ground daily, and touch it with his forehead. 
And what is more difficult is, that he has to get up 
as often and stretch his hands out, etc. If, therefore, 
time hangs heavily upon him, he takes his little carpet 
out of the pocket of his plaited dressing-gown, spreads 
it on the ground, and says his prayer. Business is 
easier to him than to Europeans. With us time rolls 
on so fast that we lose breath, and it requires an 
effort to keep pace with it. But with the Moslem 
time has been standing still, and he stands still with 
it. The rest follows of itself. 

Wonderful to say, he is not the least envious of 
the European, whose accomplishments, inventions, 
and creations are not applauded by him in the least. 
Even he who has travelled in Europe, who has seen 
Paris, Vienna, and the civilised world, likes to return 



CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 75 

to his turbaned Orient, and has no wish to revisit 
Europe. The Mohammedan, whether here in Tunis 
or anywhere else, does not consider the European as 
a higher, more cultivated race, mentally far above 
him ; on the contrary, notwithstanding their wonder- 
ful progress, notwithstanding the beautiful products 
he receives from them, he is, in the eyes of the 
Mohammedan, something inferior, something to be 
looked down upon. He has, in respect to Euro- 
peans, about the same views as we have in regard 
to conjurors and jugglers. We admire their tricks, 
look with astonishment on their cleverness, but 
generally despise them as men. European dealers 
and colonists appear to Mohammedans in the same 
light. Who is no Moslem can never be his equal, 
can never gain his respect. This is one of the 
principal reasons why the Orient is so opposed to 
Europeans, and why a mixture of Mohammedans with 
other nations of a different creed is an impossibility. 
It is a mistake to believe that the Moors are the 
governing race in Tunis. They, who in the course 
of centuries have repeatedly played so important a 
part, and who have been the chief supports of culture, 
found indeed a new home in Tunis after they were 
driven from Spain ; and there is a part of the town 
called " El Andulas " to this day. But if they kept 
their name, they have lost long ago their brave 
martial spirit, their high culture and influence, and 
not they, but the Turks and Mamelukes, are the 
ruling element in Tunis to-day. This happened in 
consequence of the sway of the Turks. The Beys 
and Pashas usurped, with their hordes of Janizaries, 



76 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

all power, put their own creatures into all influential 
and profitable offices, and left only trade to the 
Moors. Quiet shopkeeping certainly did not contri- 
bute to preserve the martial spirit of a race once 
famed for its bravery ; and so to-day we see the 
direct descendants of the kings of Andalusia selling 
rose-water ! That they really can boast of this 
descent is proved by their family papers, which the 
Arabs generally keep with greater care and honour 
more than a European does his patent of nobility. 
In this way the Shereefs (descendants of the Prophet) 
prove their high extraction, and enjoy, through 
belonging to the holy family, not a little consideration 
in the country ; and these Shereefs, counting many 
thousands, form the real aristocracy in Mohammedan 
States. As an external distinction, they wear, 
twisted round their fez, a green turban ; and the 
reason that they are met with so frequently in all 
towns is, that the female descendants are also allowed 
to call themselves Shereefs. 

The Moors from the middle class of Tunis, and 
"society" is, as mentioned before, represented by 
the Mamelukes. They have the reins of government 
in their hands ; they are the Ministers, Generals, 
Caids, Judges, and everything influential. The 
money, principally stolen or extorted, is also possessed 
by them ; and this is the first time in the history of 
the Regency that a born Tunisian has been made 
Prime Minister. Mamelukes were always invested 
with this office before. 

The bearers of this name have no cause to be 



CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 77 

proud of it, for, literally translated, it signifies " slave," 
and the Mamelukes are really nothing else but 
Greeks and Syrians, who once were slaves of the 
Beys and Pashas, and understood how to insinuate 
themselves into the favour of their rulers by their 
inborn craftiness, meanness, and cunning. Some of, 
them were brought up with the children of their' 
masters, and outdid these even, when they had 
entered on their careers. They inherited no name 
from their parents, who were generally unknown, but 
that avarice and slyness which distinguish Greeks 
and Armenians all through the Levant, and which, 
in a country like Tunis, are the best dowry with 
which to obtain honours and riches. 

These Mamelukes, then, and perhaps a few 
Syrians and Candians, constitute the first society, 
if you can speak of first society at all in a country 
where a slave or a barber may be the favourite of 
the Bey any day, and Prime Minister soon after. 
These knowing persons are also well aware of the 
fact that courteousness and condescension make^ 
them popular, and for that reason there is less spirit 
of caste among them than anywhere else. The 
Minister has intercourse with his hairdresser, the 
General sits in his tailor's shop and plays draughts 
with him. Woman being absent, who is the greatest 
support of the spirit of caste, causes the last vestige 
of it to disappear. 

Only when meeting, do the Tunisians show any 
submission to these lords : they then kiss their hands, 
or even the hem of their dress. They do this, how- 
ever, also to old people and some others, so that 



78 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

kissing hands must not be overrated. It is astonish- 
ing how well these uncultured dignitaries, taken from 
the lowest depths, understand how to give their 
manners an appearance of aristocratic polish which 
increases as they rise in their social position. At 
home they remain rough, brutal creatures, but as 
soon as they leave the house they turn grand gentle- 
men, and nobody would suppose for a moment that 
they would even now kiss the hands of their betters 
or clean their boots ; this servile submission, and 
their excessive desire of pleasing, also maintains them 
in their places and positions, which they use first of 
all as a means of enriching themselves. 

Within a few years they have generally enough 
to build a house or buy a villa in the neighbourhood 
of Tunis. This is the moment when they try to 
withdraw themselves from the power of the Tunisian 
Ministers, their superiors. If these latter see that 
one of their Generals or Caids has scraped together 
too many riches, or has bought a handsome estate, 
they either ask for it as a present or simply take it 
away, as was the case with General Bakush, whose 
house the First Minister wished for. These fortunes, 
then, dishonestly got are always in danger. But the 
loose state of things in Tunis, their own foreign 
extraction, and the corruptibility of some of the 
gentlemen of the "corps consulaire," make it pos- 
sible for them to become subjects of some European 
State — of Greece, for instance, or Spain — and with 
little trouble they have themselves inscribed as 
such. Under these circumstances the Minister, or 
even the Bey, has no more power over them, and the 



CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 79 

respective Consul alone is their master and judge. 
They might now give the slip to the Minister alto- 
gether, but they take good care not to leave their 
berth till they are driven out of it or replaced by 
another favourite. 

Such is, as a rule, the career of a Mameluke. 
Now let us look at them in their homes, in their 
surroundings. Family life and family happiness as 
we enjoy it in Europe is unknown in the East 
The Mameluke possesses, like every rich Moor, a 
harem, only it does not contain as many wives as 
people generally suppose. The four wives allowed 
by the Koran are rarely kept, and even Tunisians of 
high standing, like Generals Kereddin, Bakush, Elias, 
and others, have one wife only, whom they like to 
hear addressed as Madam Kereddin, Madam Bakush, 
etc. She is the " official " wife, and at the visits of 
the wives of the Consuls, she represents the General's 
house and does the honours. But these evil-doers 
have many slaves who are wives without conjugal 
privileges. It is the old story with a different name. 

In dress and manner these princely favourites try 
to imitate Europeans as much as possible : they are 
dressed either in the uniform of a Tunisian General 
or in black dress with white tie and fez. Patent 
leather shoes more especially are considered the 
height of fashion for a true bureaucrat. There 
being no office hours, and they having nothing par- 
ticular to do, these young secretaries and diplomats 
stand about at the principal entrance of the Minister's 
palace, lean against columns, smoke cigarettes, and 
wait for the Minister's orders. If the latter drives 



80 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

to the Bey, they rush before his carriage in the 
greatest haste to be in time before the gate to kiss 
his hand. These sons of Mamelukes spend their 
leisure hours in the wildest way, and not five out of 
a hundred occupy themselves with any serious work. 
No authority exists for them except that of their 
fathers and old relations, for whom they have great 
respect. 

The quarter of the Mamelukes of Tunis lies in 
the upper part of the town, in the neighbourhood of 
the " Kasba," the prison fortress, often mentioned 
before. To have a palace in one of the quiet, 
narrow streets, in the midst of the "grandees of the 
empire," has always been the dream of every upstart. 
Great sums are spent for furnishing this palace ; 
Parisian carpets and furniture, gilt picture-frames, 
mirrors, chandeliers and vases are crowded into his 
drawing-room. Part of the house, generally the 
ground floor and the front rooms of the first floor, 
are reserved for receptions. The harem, furnished 
in a still more luxurious manner, lies at the back of 
the house, quite shut out. There is no trace any- 
where of the- exquisite products of the East : none 
of their carpets, filigrees, divans, little smoking tables 
and Moorish shrines ; he spends fabulous sums to 
equal the Parisians, gets taken in and cheated by the 
purveyors, and is laughed at by the Consuls and 
Europeans who visit him into the bargain. To give 
an instance. He will hang three or four large glass 
chandeliers in a small room, puts besides some 
candelabra on the side-tables, and at least two or 
three clocks between, which do not go. These 



CUSTOMS OF GOOD SOCIETY IN TUNIS. 81 

clocks are a true picture of Tunis, which is also at a 
standstill, waiting for the Europeans to wind it up. 

But the best of all is their taste in pictures. They 
think it perfection to have of the reigning Bey not 
one portrait, but at least three, and always the same. 
So they buy three copies of an engraving, put them 
in broad gilt frames and hang them all in a row. 

Before the gates of these Mameluke palaces there 
are generally a number of negroes in splendid cos- 
tumes embroidered in gold ; they take no notice of 
their master's visitors, except it be a Consul or some 
distinguished European. And if at last, moved by a 
"bakshish" to give an answer and to see if the 
" Sidi " (this is the designation of a grandee in 
Tunis) is at home, there is in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred a refusal. Especially do they tire the 
patience of their master's creditors, all well known 
to them ; they have to lay siege for weeks before 
they can be admitted. If they succeed at last, there 
is a new disappointment, for, however rich, the dis- 
tinguished Tunisian has never any money. What he 
does with it is a puzzle ; even the richest amongst 
them is constantly in pecuniary embarrassment ; he 
possesses the value of millions in fields, cattle, horses, 
camels, but can scarcely ever pay the wages of his 
servants ; he therefore always wants the Jew, who 
lends him the necessary cash on usurious terms. It 
is a state of things which often reminds you of that 
of the " petits seigneurs " in the Russian provinces. 

Of course there are worthy exceptions amongst 
these Mamelukes, as, for instance, the former Turkish 
Grand Vizier, the often-named Kereddin, General 

G 



82 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Bakush, etc. Though also Mamelukes in the fullest 
sense of the word — that is to say, former slaves — 
they have attained by frequent travels in Europe 
and by assiduous studies, a certain degree of culture ; 
they speak French, and have intercourse with dis- 
tinguished Europeans, but they are only exceptions, 
and are not exactly encouraged by the orthodox 
part of Moslem society. 

A few high offices are still filled here and there 
by Turks, especially military ones ; but, on the 
whole, the Turks, together with their descendants 
by Arabian mothers — the Kuluglis — are totally 
impoverished. From among them are recruited 
the lazy, but proud and incapable "Janizaries" or 
" Kawasses " of the foreign consulates, of the banks, 
and of the Bey's household. The rest of them are 
still maintained by the Government according to old 
usage. This means a loaf of bad bread a day each 
and shelter in one of the empty barracks. In 
summer the Mamelukes wander after the Bey like 
sheep after the bell-wether. But their favourite 
sojourn is either " Manouba " or " Ariane " in the 
neighbourhood of Tunis, in which two places most 
of the " aristocrats " have their villas in the midst of 
palm groves and orangeries. But even here there is 
no mutual intercourse, and their ill-gotten gains do 
them no good. They do not know the proper way 
of spending money. 



LIVE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 83 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 

In many descriptions of the East and of Oriental 
customs, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripolis are included, 
and put on a level with other Oriental countries. 
Nothing is more erroneous than this mixing up of the 
Eastern and Western States of the Orient. I have 
repeatedly, and for a long time, visited the Moham- 
medan dominions of the three parts of the world 
which lie around the Mediterranean. But in every 
single country I found different habits and manners, 
though an apparent external equality has deceived 
many tourists in this respect. And how is it possible 
that, amongst the Moors and Kabyles of Oran and 
Tlemsan, the same customs are prevalent as amongst 
the races of Asia Minor and Arabia, divided as they 
are by more than a thousand miles, and by desert, sea, 
and mountains ? But populated countries are more 
capable than water and desert of separating different 
races — as in this case Egypt. Only by the Koran 
were they united hitherto. This contains so many 
directions about religion, family life, and ceremonies 
that a certain uniformity must necessarily be pro- 



84 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



duced ; but no book has been interpreted in so many 
different ways, or contains such oracular advice, as 
this Bible of the Orientals. The vagueness of these 
directions, and the infeasibility of their execution, 
influenced the Oriental women even more than the 
men. In consequence of their slight intercourse 
with the outer world, their total ignorance of other 
countries and even of their nearest surroundings, they 
could still less change the mode of life peculiar to 
them than the men. Every one will recognise at 
once on those large steamers which contain the Mecca 
pilgrims and so often cross the Red Sea, the different 
Oriental races by their dress and appearance, even if 
he does not speak Arabic. If, through more frequent 
visits, he comes in closer contact with them, the 
difference of language, customs, and dress will strike 
him even more. Amongst the Christian nations of 
Europe this difference is more evident as we reach a 
lower stage of civilisation, and the farther we get from 
the large towns into the country places. There we 
find in different districts different costumes, dialects, 
and habits, while in the larger towns these remain 
almost the same. In the East, just the opposite is 
the case. Here the variety is to be found in the 
large towns, whereas little difference is seen in the 
country. 

Tunis furnishes a striking example of this. It is 
the second town of the African continent, and pro- 
bably also the oldest, and much less affected by 
European influence than the Egyptian or Algerian 
towns. Here, Oriental or rather Tunisian life has 
been preserved in its original primitive form, and 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 8$ 

you meet during a longer residence those many 
peculiarities unknown in other Oriental countries. 
This is equally true of both sexes. Though I cannot 
boast of having penetrated during my stay in Tunis 
into a harem while it was inhabited by its tenants, 
I was fortunate enough to hear everything worth 
knowing from European ladies who, by a long 
residence in Tunis, as well as through their intimate 
relations with the established feminine world, were 
better entitled than anybody else to give me the 
necessary particulars. My own experience is limited 
to the very interesting visits of several empty harems, 
and to life in the streets. 

Women are kept much stricter in Tunis than 
either in Egypt or Turkey. In Constantinople and 
Cairo they enjoy a certain liberty ; they may visit 
each other, drive out and may make purchases 
themselves in the bazaars. Those towns are too large, 
and there is too much traffic for their movements to 
be controlled as they are here. Moorish ladies of 
high standing in Tunis never show themselves in the 
street ; and there are thousands of them whose only 
walk during their whole lives has been from the house 
of their parents to that of their husbands. Poor 
women have to go out to make their purchases, and 
also to go to public baths, as they have none in their 
houses ; but they are veiled to such a degree, and 
enveloped in so many shawls, that you can scarcely 
see the tips of their fingers. Amongst the hundred 
Moors you meet in the narrow streets of Tunis and 
in the " Suks " (bazaars) there is perhaps one woman ; 
and, to judge by her movements, she is, as a rule, old 



86 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



and decrepit. All wear the black veil or yashmak, 




NOBLE ARAB WOMAN. 



of plaited horsehair, which they press close to the 
face, covering it almost entirely ; even their eyes are 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 87 

rarely seen, except they are beggars or fast women. 
The women of the middle classes not only wear the 
yashmak and haik (a sort of white bornous), but they 
also hold a dark, heavy, silk handkerchief with both 
hands before their face, so that they can only see two 
or three steps before them, to avoid dirtying them- 
selves in the muddy little streets. Therefore you 
only see their feet clothed in little slippers, either 
embroidered with gold or of patent leather, and 
perhaps a little bit of- the calf, dressed in a snow-white 
stocking, ornamented with silver or golden m'sais 
(clasps), which clink at every step like spurs. 
Scarcely ever 'are they accompanied by children. 
They generally glide by quickly, and close to the 
wall ; and if they meet Europeans, they often turn 
another way, so as to avoid coming near the hated 
Giaurs. Woe be to the European who, in the presence 
of men, were to stare at a Moorish woman or dared 
to accost her ! The Moors are, both in respect of 
their religion and their women, the greatest fanatics ; 
and to pursue a woman or to enter a mosque may 
cost one's life to this day. 

The European who, misled by romantic descrip- 
tions, expects to find here splendid odalisks, beautiful 
as the day, and ready to love him, will be greatly 
disappointed. There are none of those secluded, 
fanciful palaces, with the accompanying balconies on 
which the fair one rests. No seductive eyes behind 
dark trellised windows suggestive of a continuation of 
the romantic affair ! Europeans, as well as natives, 
have no opportunity for adventures except during the 
time of the Rhamadan festival ; and if he likes to try 



88 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

by money or other contrivance, he risks his head. 
The man who catches his wife in flagrante has the 
right at once to kill her, as well as the disturber of 
his peace, and these cases are not of rare occurrence. 
In spring, when the hot days begin, I have often 
seen long rows of hermetically-closed carriages with 
armed eunuchs on the boxes and guards on horseback, 
leave town to go to the watering-places or country 
seats of the neighbourhood — these were the harems 
of the rich, changing domicile for some months. 
Instead of windows, these carriages had red-painted 
boards, and only rarely red curtains, lifted a little bit 
here and there to show you an arm or the outline of 
a face in the dark carriage. I was often sorry to 
have to be satisfied with this, but I was still more 
sorry for the poor women to whom was denied the 
enjoyment of this tropical nature, which in spring 
discloses its exquisite beauties. How cruelly men 
have interfered here with nature ! The Koran says 
nothing of these restrictions ; religion does not order 
them ; these practices have solely been dictated by 
the jealousy of men. Neither is it anywhere pre- 
scribed for women to be muffled up entirely in the 
street ; it is only the fashion, like the veil of European 
women. But they know better than not to observe 
this fashion ! In Algiers I often enjoyed the doubtful 
happiness of seeing the faces of Moorish women un- 
veiled ; in Tunis this happened only once. Through t 
the intercession of the Prime Minister I had got 
permission to see the splendid castle Marsa, belonging 
to Sidi AH Bey ; I walked through the orange and 
palm groves of his park, when I found myself in that 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 89 

part of it which borders on his harem. Some windows 
were wide open, and at one of them sat the successor 
to the throne with one of his wives, apparently the 
youngest of them. Both returned my salutation, but 
the wife, a brunette of dazzling beauty, did not retire 
from the window. Good taste did not allow me to 
throw more than a fugitive glance at the window — 
though it was hard, for she was beautiful enough to 
be looked at for hours. 

Now as to life in the harem itself. No man 
except the lord and master and the nearest relations 
is allowed to enter ; my readers therefore must be 
satisfied with those intimations which I have obtained 
second-hand. 

To do justice to etiquette, our first visit must be 
to the harem of the Bey. This is quartered during 
winter in the Bardo, the Bey's official residence. To 
the right of the giant staircase, which has often been 
described and is well known, there is a little door, 
bolted and grated, which is scarcely noticed by the 
uninitiated. This is the entrance to the harem. We 
knock. The face of a black eunuch appears at a 
closely-barred little window. He observes the faces 
of his visitors, closely tries to find out whether there 
is amongst them perhaps a man in woman's clothes, 
glances quickly across the courtyard, and at last 
opens the gate just sufficiently to let us in. A 
number of eunuchs just as black and just as polite as 
this Cerberus, stand guard on the staircase, and dis- 
appear as soon as we have ascended it. We are now 
in a square, surrounded by colonnades and covered 
with glass, into which a number of apartments open. 



90 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Between the columns, on the door-sills, against the 
walls, stand, sit, or crouch about fifty women, children, 
young girls, and old hags, representatives of all pos- 
sible races, from the pale white Circassian to the 
negress as black as ebony, — some ugly, some beauti- 
ful. A dreadful confusion of all possible Oriental 
types, females of from ten years to eighty, in costumes 
of every different colour, each doing some sort of 
work, either sewing, knitting, washing, or ironing, 
and fixing on us eyes as curious as we fix on them. 
The cut of their dresses was the same with all of 
them, white stockings, white wide trousers, and a 
loose upper garment reaching over the loins, of either 
blue, red, orange, or light-green silk, without a girdle. 
The jet-black hair is brushed lightly backwards, and 
finishes in a thick plait, to which are fastened two 
silk ribbons of different colours, and embroidered 
with gold. On their heads they wear also a very 
peculiar velvet cap, similarly embroidered with gold, 
and called kuffia. This is similar to a German stu- 
dent's cap, but pointed. What, however, disfigures 
these women more than their costumes is the rougeing 
and painting of their faces, eyebrows, eyelids, and 
lips, and the dyeing of the tips of their fingers and 
toes with brown henna, a fashion which is followed 
all over the Orient, and without which no woman is 
considered beautiful. It is only quite lately that 
some of the wives of Tunisian grandees have given 
up this silly habit. 

The place in which we find ourselves is the only 
abode of the women of the harem, from the time of 
their entry until their death. Everything necessary 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 91 

for them is manufactured here. With the exception 
of the stuffs and raw products, furniture and jewellery 
which the master of the house buys, all is made in 
this harem. The servants of the Bey's first wife are 
at the same time the slaves of the Bey. Some of 
these have never left the yard in which we see them 
to-day ; their bed-rooms have no windows, and the 
only light which can penetrate, comes through the 
dull glass panes of the roofs ! Here they eat, work, 
and sleep ; all the year round they live in complete 
ignorance of the outer world, which they have never 
seen, unless as children. Are they unhappy for this 
reason ? We must suppose it ; but it is not so. 
They have perhaps some notion of the life and of 
the amusements of European women, who sometimes 
come to see them in their loneliness, but they do not 
know exactly what it is like. And these presenti- 
ments, this longing, this looking for the unknown, 
impresses in their youth an intense melancholy on 
their features, which also accompanies them in their 
manners and movements. Slowly they approach and 
contemplate us with a naive and silent curiosity, 
which seems mixed with conjectures about our own 
lives and loves. 

Most of these slaves are negresses, merrier, noisier, 
and more childish than their white sisters. They 
have more liberty, for while the Bey never allows the 
white slaves of his harem to leave him, he changes 
frequently the negresses, who then often marry, and 
with the joyousness born in them, manage yet to see 
life from a pleasanter point of view. 

We walk now through a second place furnished 



92 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

with some furniture of the time of Louis XVI. 
Coming to another door we find again two eunuchs 
keeping watch. Some steps lead from here to a 
large room without windows, which receives light 
from the top. In two large alcoves opposite each 
other stand two large beautiful four-posters of gilt 
wood, beautifully carved, and before them French 
sofas and easy-chairs. On the floor are some mat- 
tresses, on which some girls, young and very pretty, 
roll about in deshabille, laughing and playing. This 
is the reception-room of the " Beyess," who sits on a 
sofa with crossed legs and salutes us ceremoniously 
as we enter. She is a fat old woman with an insig- 
nificant face, by the side of which her short hair falls 
over the ears. Neck, arms, legs, and fingers are 
literally covered with costly jewellery, bracelets and 
rings. She wears a sort of blouse of red silk, and 
white linen pantaloons, which get tighter near the 
feet, and end in silk socks. All doors and recesses 
are occupied by women of the harem, who eye 
curiously the toilets and manners of the European 
ladies. There is a long pause before anybody speaks. 
At last the ""Beyess," a very capricious lady, seems 
to get impatient at the silence of her visitors, and 
one of the latter who can speak Arabic, ventures to 
say some flattering words respecting the beautiful 
decorations of her drawing-room. This seems to 
cheer her up, and with a smile she shows her rings, 
her embroidered dresses, and her pearls. But as a 
matter of course conversation soon comes to a 
standstill. At last permission is asked to see 
the bed-room. The "Beyess" rises, crosses her 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 93 

hands on her back, and walks carelessly towards a 
room at the back of the drawing-room. The bed- 
room which we enter is furnished quite in the 
European style. A four-poster of palisander wood, 
a chest of drawers with a large looking-glass, and 
easy chairs. On the wall hangs a life-size portrait 
of the Bey, her consort, and we hasten to congratulate 
her on his beauty. 

" Oh yes," she answers, " he is handsome, he 
comes to see me every evening ! " We are silent, 
for we know that Mohamed es Sadock for years past 
has visited the palace every afternoon only for 
appearance's sake, without even seeing her. 

We return to the drawing-room, where young 
lovely girls serve coffee. Some more words of 
politeness, and we retire, accompanied to the door by 
several eunuchs. 

The harems of the Ministers and other grand 
personages in Tunis are similar to this one, the only 
difference being that there is more noise and merri- 
ment. The largest and most splendid harem is the 
one belonging to Sidi Ali Bey, who houses three 
hundred slaves and servants besides six legitimate 
wives. But in Tunis as well as in Constantinople 
and Cairo the fashion to have only one wife gains 
more and more followers. But I should not like to 
be misunderstood. They are not really satisfied 
with one wife like Europeans. On the contrary, it 
is only a question of having the appearance of 
European civilisation. They choose amongst the 
women of the harem one whom they surround with 



94 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

all possible splendour, and with the domestic state 
of a great lady, and present her as " Madam," etc., in 
European society. 

I have visited many harems of men in high 
positions while the inhabitants were absent, and I 
found the richest and the most beautiful was the one 
in the palace of the former Grand Vizier and Tunisian 
Prime Minister, General Kereddin, at Manouba. This 
most remarkable palace, surrounded by lovely gardens, 
is divided in two halves, of which the one is devoted 
entirely to the women, and connected with the other 
half only by a door in the General's bed-room. A 
second large door leads from the general vestibule to 
a staircase, only accessible to ladies, at the top of 
which the "Arabian drawing-room" is situated, a 
room undoubtedly more elegantly decorated than 
any other I have seen in the whole Regency. This 
is the reception-room of the General's wife. As in 
the Bey's harem, there are here two enormous four- 
posters in large recesses opposite each other, and also 
carved in gilt wood. In the middle of this room, 
furnished with carpets, mirrors, and bronze ornaments 
in the style of Louis XVI., stands a round divan with 
ornamental plants and palms. On the side-tables 
candelabras and clocks, heavily gilt. Most beautiful 
is the ceiling in the shape of an Oriental dome, 
entirely covered with little mirrors put behind an 
interlacement of tiny golden bars. Two small doors 
in the background lead into two bed-rooms. The 
women do not live in these reception-rooms. Their 
habitation is on the second floor. The staircase 
leads into a square yard covered in with glass 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 95 

windows, round which the living and sleeping rooms 
of about a hundred female servants lie. On one 
side of the yard there is a small dining-room in 
which the General's wife dines, either alone or only 
with a few women. Her husband is thus never 
present, and though the Orientals have adopted 
Parisian furniture and other Parisian outward forms, 
their charming " petits diners a deux," do not seem 
to be to their taste. Madame Kereddin uses knife 
and fork like all other grand ladies in Tunis, but 
orthodox ladies and those of the middle classes eat 
with their fingers. 

Next to the dining-room is a large hall, round 
the walls of which broad red velvet divans run, and 
here, in about twenty or thirty large painted trunks, 
is kept the wardrobe of the female members of the 
General's family. The room bordering on this is 
the bed-room of the General's wife, hung with blue 
paper and looking-glasses. In the centre of it, and 
taking up half the room, stands a large broad bed 
with blue curtains, and behind it is a door leading 
to a dressing-room, while another scarcely perceptible 
leads to the General's bed-room. 

To the physicians the invisibility of their patients 
is of course very troublesome in their calling. If 
the doctor is expected, the curtains are drawn 
across the sick-bed. If the pulse of a Moorish 
lady is to be felt, a eunuch covers arms and hand, 
and only leaves the wrist free. If the tongue is 
to be shown, the eunuch covers her face with his 
hands, and the poor lady has to stretch out her 
tongue between his fingers. If she suffers from 



96 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

smallpox, the eunuch counts the marks, and reports 
to the physician. 

Grievous though the accusation may seem, there 
can be no doubt that adultery has a great charm for 
, the beautiful Oriental women. Perhaps they have a 
certain right of making use of their free, unguarded 
moments in consequence of their husbands' coldness, 
and because of the division of their love amongst so 
many rivals. That connubial faithlessness is not rare 
is proved by the words of the Arabian poet : A 
Moorish woman seldom leaves her house ; but if 
she does, it is always with the well considered inten- 
tion of deceiving her husband. 

The month of adventures is, as a rule, the 
Rhamadan. During this festival, when Moham- 
medans turn night into day, women enjoy somewhat 
greater liberty, and they make use of it to their 
heart's content. It is strange that a Moorish woman 
feels for her husband scarcely more than indifference, 
while she worships her lover. And the husband, 
whose wife is utterly indifferent to him, and whom 
he treats contemptuously, is the tenderest and most 
ardent lover of other women. The veiling and 
wrapping up of the Tunisian ladies, whenever they 
leave their house, facilitates these elective affinities 
in a high degree. They need only change their 
" Haiks " and wraps, and their husbands cannot re- 
cognise them. 

Of course there are many honourable exceptions 
amongst the population of Tunis. Polygamy is not 
bo much known amongst the Moors as with Bedouins 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 97 

One wife is already to the Moor a very expensive 
article, while to the Bedouin she is a working power 
and source of industry. With the exception of the 
princes and the grandees few can indulge in the 
luxury of a real harem. The abolition of slavery 
and European influence are the reasons that this 
African institution gets rarer and rarer. A Croesus 
does here and there buy a Circassian for a large 
sum, or has girls trained for himself at his country 
seat, but these are exceptions. The women are 
more tied to their lord and master, and he has no 
more the right to treat them badly, or beat them. 
The Bey alone has power over the life and death 
of his women ; the others are protected by the law. 
A great many Moors adopt this new form of their 
conjugal life with pleasure, and are willing to con- 
cede to the mother of their children a higher social 
position. The easiness with which marriages can be 
dissolved prevents to a certain extent deceptions on 
both sides. 

The way in which Moorish ladies are prepared 
for their marriage is a very strange one. I have 
said before that a woman is only seen by her husband 
after the wedding ; but, according to European ideas, 
her beauty is then gone. Her best time is as a girl, 
between ten and twelve years old, which would be 
shortly before her marriage. After this comes the 
time for artificial fattening, and with this process we 
should consider her beauty at an end, while, accord- 
ing to the Tunisian standard, it only begins. The 
poor girls are, for this purpose, put in dark damp 
places, where any moving about is impossible. Here 

H 



98 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE, 

they are fed on Kuskussu, on the flesh of young 
dogs and horse livers, which, the Tunisians believe, 
contribute more than anything towards fattening their 
ladies. They are kept like that for several months, 
during which time they sleep on feather pillows. 
When they have reached the desired " embonpoint," 
which is sometimes phenomenal, then they are con- 
sidered fit for marriage ! 

It would lead us too far to describe the many 
diverting ceremonies which are in use at Moorish 
weddings. When the young wife has once entered 
her husband's house a short time of happiness is 
in store for her, suppose that she is really pretty, 
and that he is not disappointed at first sight. She 
may then only expect from him tenderness and 
caresses, but for how short a time ! The sensuous 
Moor turns to other women, and the monotonous 
harem life begins ! The Moorish ladies spend most 
of their time in bathing, dressing, and sleeping, and 
the only amusements allowed them are music, tales, 
and dances ; but they invariably form the audience. 
The narrators are generally old negresses or Bedouin 
women, and their business is a well-paying one, though 
their tales are always the same. The band of music 
which performs in the harem is also composed of 
three or four old negresses, who play their old 
Oriental tunes on a two-stringed violin, a tarbouka 
(a kind of drum), castanets, and a Basque tambourin. 
Sometimes they accompany this by singing in their 
screeching voices. The most exciting amusements 
for them, however, are the performances of the 
Oriental ballet dancers, which always form part of the 



LIFE IN A MOORISH HAREM. 99 

programme at weddings, the Beyram, etc. These 
are sensual orgies, which with music and spirits are 
carried to a pitch amounting to frenzy, till it all 
ends with general exhaustion. Now and then they 
are permitted to watch behind grated windows the 
war-dances of the Bedouins and the irregular troops, 
the so-called " fantasia ;" but, on the whole, it will be 
seen that in charm and variety the life of a European 
shop-girl may safely be preferred to that of the first 
of Tunisian ladies. I could prove this still more 
decidedly if it were feasible to follow up the above 
picture with impossible details. But what is said will 
be sufficient to show that woman's fate in the land 
of the Moors is not enviable. 

LofC. 



loo TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WALKS THROUGH THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 

THROUGHOUT the whole Orient nothing is more 
interesting for the European traveller than the 
bazaars. Through them the streets which lack life 
and character become animated ; they are the heart 
and soul of town-life, the touchstone of the wealth 
and size of every individual town. As the interior 
of Mohammedan houses is so difficult of access, the 
street traffic, generally speaking, inconsiderable, these 
bazaars, with their endless rows of shops, wherein a 
multitude of people is surging up and down, with 
their various wares exposed for sale, give the attent- 
ive European, a picture of the Oriental mode of life, 
of their wants, and propensities. This is less the 
case in Constantinople, in Cairo, and in Algiers. 
European culture has made a breach into old cus- 
toms there. Not so in Tunis, where a great part of 
ancient fanaticism and of former proud reserve has 
been kept up together with the Islam, and where the 
European traveller is in the beginning restricted to 
visiting bazaars. 

The bazaars of Constantinople and Cairo are 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 



grander and more beautiful, but those in Tunis are 
more interesting and peculiar. As they were cen- 
turies ago, so they are to-day, with only one innova- 
tion — the Jews. Up to some twenty years ago 
the Jewish and Moorish quarters were completely 
separated, and the Jews had their own bazaars. 
With the growth of European influence, however, 
greater liberties were granted them, and free com- 
petition amongst them. Very soon they took a 
great part of the commerce out of the hands of 
the apathetic Mohammedans, and they are now the 
wealthiest and most important element amongst 
the bazaar merchants. But the bazaars have lost 
nothing of their thoroughly Oriental characteristics 
through this invasion, for the Jews of Tunis differ 
very little from the Moors either in dress or 
habits. 

Situated in the heart of Tunis, these bazaars seem 
on a first visit an inextricable labyrinth of streets 
and lanes, which run off into all sorts of corners and 
curves, pick up innumerable blind alleys, yards, and 
avenues, and seem to have been built without any 
plan and by avoiding straight lines. The plan of 
Tunis itself presents such an abundance of impossible 
streets and roads that the bazaar is only found after 
long rambling and searching, or if you are not look- 
ing for it. In addition to this the streets have no 
names, the houses no numbers. Their designation 
is given according to the article which is sold in 
them ; and as there are in many streets three or four 
lines of business, they have also as many names. 
Only after many visits the way can be found in this 



io2 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

confusion, and the fact is discovered that a certain 
system prevails. 

The appearance of the bazaar streets is as dif- 
ferent from the others as, in European towns, the 
commercial quarters from the other parts where 
people have their private houses. The narrow, quiet 
streets, with their white walls and barred windows, 
get livelier and dirtier the nearer the bazaar is 
approached. Instead of the iron, firmly-bolted doors 
which protect all dwellings, we find already here and 
there small shops, which become more and more 
numerous, and which, strange to say, all have the 
same kind of business. 

At last the shops get close together, the street 
doors disappear entirely ; there is no more difference 
between the single houses. Finally you see the end 
of the lane roofed with planks resting on the roofs of 
the houses on either side. Here the re'al bazaar 
begins. He who comes from the sunny, hot streets, 
with their dazzling white walls, is at first scarcely 
able to distinguish the surroundings. Only by pene- 
trating deeper into this maze of roofed, half dark, 
and damp bazaar lanes can he discover any arrange- 
ment ; the odd little shops, the solemn dealers, the 
gorgeousness of the garments, seen even in this dim 
light, the quantity and variety of the goods exposed 
for sale. It is scarcely possible to realise and seize 
this fantastic impression. Eye and mind seem to be 
in the same confused state as these bazaars we 
behold, and it takes a good many visits before we 
can make it out and think of details. Life in these 
narrow streets is wonderfully brisk and active, as 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 103 

well as picturesque. The most heterogeneous types, 
races, nations, and classes push against each other 
here ; no street is broad enough for a carriage to 
pass, but men on horseback or on donkeys, pedes- 
trians, and from time to time heavily-loaded camels, 
which touch in walking both sides of the street, 
squeeze and knock the visitor, and ruthlessly push 
him aside. If at first you get impatient at coming 
into contact with a lot of Bedouins, with ragged 
perspiring water-carriers, and dirty beggars, you soon 
find out that nobody thinks of making room for 
his neighbour, and the only means to get on is by 
pushing and knocking in return. 

The best way to visit a bazaar, and to study the 
wild commotion there in the morning, is to leave the 
crowd and enter one of the small shops, whose 
owners generally bid you welcome and offer you a 
seat on their carpet, besides presenting you with a 
cup of coffee. You might sit here and look on for 
hours without tiring, so interesting is this bazaar life. 
However often and long you stay, new objects of 
interest, new types, offer themselves constantly. It 
is this which makes the East so attractive, and the 
more we penetrate its mysteries the more do we wish 
to return. 

We have known our own institutions all our life, 
they have grown upon us. But here only a few 
months, or perhaps weeks, are given us to learn quite 
a new world with all its peculiarities, and this 
superabundance of novelties and of remarkable 
sights can scarcely be exhausted. The national 
types, the different modes of dress, the religious and 



lo4 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

social degrees of rank, the manners, the salutations, 
.he way of speaking, all is unrolled before our eyes ; 
but what awakens our interest more than anything 
here are naturally — the women. The hours of sale 
in the bazaars offer the only opportunity for observ- 
ing the life of a Tunisian woman, at least up to a 
certain extent, for beyond it she is absolutely in- 
visible, a puzzle which we have no means of solving. 
But however secluded a Tunisian woman may live, 
unless she belongs to the highest classes she will 
always visit the bazaar and make her purchases there. 
What can be seen of her must be seen here — her 
dress, her manners, her language, if not her face. 

A Moorish bazaar is not, as is sometimes sup- 
posed in Europe, only a market, where people buy 
and sell ; it is also the manufacturing place for many 
articles. Booths and workshops stand so close to- 
gether that of the architecture of the houses you can 
perceive nothing. Now and then you look into a 
by -street which leads to the bazaar, or into dark 
vaulted passages, which mostly contain little coffee- 
houses and* " hotels " for merchants coming from the 
interior of the country, and for caravans. Whole 
families are housed here in small dark rooms, and 
horses and mules, possibly, share this peaceful abode ; 
large bales of merchandise, tropical fruits, carpet-rolls, 
and other goods are piled up in the damp yards, and 
at the entrance is found, perhaps, a Moorish restaur- 
ant, where they bake cakes steeped in oil or honey, 
fry little pieces of meat stuck on spits like knitting- 
needles, and prepare the famous date-soup. There 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 105 

are no restaurants in Tunis as we have them in 
Europe ; there are no tables and seats, no zealous 
waiters serving refreshments and trying to do the 
stranger out of a few sous. Tunis only knows open 
street-restaurants — the fireplace is in the street, or, in 
the best case, in a narrow recess in the wall. The 
little spits with tiny bits of meat are before the fire, 
and the host sits next to it with a large fan to drive 
away thousands of flies attracted by the smell of 
burnt meat. A dinner consisting of two or three 
courses costs from one penny to twopence halfpenny ; 
and, as there are neither plates nor knives and forks, 
you eat it standing, with your fingers ; for dessert 
you get a small cake, which is also eaten in the 
morning and evening, and is sold by a strolling baker 
for less than a halfpenny. The water-carriers, with 
the filled leathern pipes on their backs and the 
clattering tin vessels in their hands, run between the 
diners to and fro to hand them a draught for half a 
farthing. 

In these Tunisian bazaars there is an inconceiv- 
able pressure — everybody is as close to his neighbour 
and on his neighbour as he possibly can be, so that 
traffic and a general view of the goods are downright 
impossible. The smallest shop in Europe would be 
the largest in these bazaars, as there is scarcely a 
booth where more than two or three can sit next to 
each other. They are as a rule so small that the 
intending purchaser has to stand on the somewhat pro- 
jecting little bench outside the shop. Under these 
circumstances it is only natural that in Tunis the 
guild of clerks and apprentices is unknown. Even 



106 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

their largest shops are only looked after by one man 
— the owner himself. But their sons and successors 
are sometimes allowed to look on to be initiated 
into the secrets of business. 

After walking for hours through the gloomy 
bazaar lanes, where wooden roofs are put up for pro- 
tection against the heat of the sun and too much 
light, you are astonished how a town, not very large, 
can support so many merchants. There are on both 
sides unbroken lines of small recesses in which the 
Moor sits, with a body as sleek as his face is delicate, 
in a costume of many colours, his legs crossed, 
twisting cigarettes, and drinking coffee. Every lane 
has its restaurant and also the " cafe," which is an 
open fireplace in a doorway, on which little tin vessels 
are placed. The keeper of this cafe" is on his legs 
all day long, carrying cups to his customers and 
pouring out a beverage — black, thick, and sweet. 
Every visitor, every customer, even the European, 
gets his coffee at once, and perhaps a cigarette of 
excellent Tunisian tobacco. 

There is much talking and sleeping, but little 
buying. I' myself have sometimes observed mer- 
chants who did not get rid of a single pennyworth 
during the whole day. The reason of this must be 
looked for in their peculiar social circumstances. 
Many of the Moorish citizens have succeeded in 
hiding the treasures inherited from their forefathers, 
and so preserved them from the extortions of the 
Bey and his Ministers. These small fortunes would 
be sufficient for Mohammedans, whose wants are 
very small, to live comfortably in their houses. But 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 107 

as this would be a proof of their wealth, their pro- 
perty would soon fall into the hands of their rulers. 
So they prefer to take a shop for some hundreds of 
piastres a year, and to put a few empty perfume 
bottles and boxes into it, hanging at the same time 
several wax candles on the ceiling or some other 
article for sale, which proceeding turns them into 
merchants. 

And there is yet another reason why the Moors 
have a predilection for the calling of a bazaar mer- 
chant There is in Tunis a total absence of social 
life, for what could society possibly be without 
woman, its most important and charming element ? 
The Moor locks up his wives and daughters, watches 
them with jealousy, and hides them carefully from 
every other man. His house is therefore inaccessible 
to his friends except when extraordinary festivities 
take place, when he locks up his whole harem into 
garrets. To spend days, weeks, and years with 
women alone is even in the case of highly-cultured 
European ladies a very doubtful charm. But Moorish 
ladies do not possess the slightest knowledge, are 
utterly uneducated, without an idea of reading, writ- 
ing or music, so that men are compelled to look 
for their amusements amongst men. In his house 
he can no more receive them than they him, so 
the bazaar shop helps them out of a difficulty. 
Here he not only finds some amusement, but he 
also visits and receives his friends, with whom he 
takes his coffee ; the news can be heard here, too (no 
newspaper existing in the whole country). Hence 
the extent and importance of the bazaars in Tunis ; 



io8 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

not half the merchants take their calling very 
seriously. 

All this shows the strange circumstances pre- 
vailing here ; even competition is unknown, neither 
does the Tunisian understand what envy of trade 
means. It happened to me several times that, a 
dealer had not got what I wanted. He went to his 
neighbour and brought from his shop the article 
asked for. When I asked him whether it was his 
property or if he had a share in it, he always said, 
" Kif, kif." " It is the same whether you buy here 
or there." Under these circumstances it was not 
difficult for the Jews to make themselves masters of 
the market as soon as they got permission to sell 
there. Since then the Moor drifts towards certain 
bankruptcy. Already now, the jewel bazaar, the 
cloth and silk bazaars, and others, are entirely in the 
hands of the Jews, and the Arabs apply themselves 
only to Arabian articles, such as arms, bornouses, 
perfumes, etc. 

It is scarcely to be supposed that any order can 
prevail in this confusion of narrow, dirty lanes. But 
this is a mistake. The principal bazaar is divided 
into ten divisions or " suks," according to the goods 
which are sold in them. Perfumes, for instance, 
carpets, ladies' dresses and materials, etc., have their 
own " suks," an " anim " or chief presiding at each 
of them. He is elected by the merchants or 
appointed by the local authorities, and it is his duty 
to settle all disputes regarding the bazaar and its 
industry, and to punish transgressions. For instance, 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 109 

the chief of the bakers is bound to test the weight 
and quality of the bread. If found unsatisfactory 
the baker is dragged into the street and thrown 
down, when policemen apply to the soles of his feet 
fifty or a hundred bastinado cuts, according to the 
chief's judgment. i 

The " suks " are separated by gates, and in the 
evening, after the last prayer, they are locked. As 
the bazaars are uninhabited, the merchants have 
watchmen there, who generally sleep on the projecting 
roofs of the streets, as this is the only way by which 
thieves could get into the bazaars. But they break in 
and steal, nevertheless, just as they do in the Palais 
Royal in Paris. 

The longest bazaar is the one where shoes are 
manufactured and sold. In this bazaar are hundreds 
of shops, and they take up nearly a dozen little 
streets. In every single shop three or four men are 
occupied with cutting out and sewing red and yellow 
slippers, which are the principal foot covering of the 
Tunisians. High top-boots of red leather are some- 
times hung out for sale. 

Almost as big as the shoe bazaar is the one 
where they knit and finish the famous fez. Nobody 
supposes that it is knitted with white wool, and that, 
before being finished, it is large enough to cover a 
horse's head. Through constant washing, beating, 
and dyeing, they are reduced to the proper measure. 
The fez, which in Tunis is called " sheshia," is after- 
wards treated by scraping, then pressed, and finally 
furnished with the favourite silk tassel a foot long. 
Such a fez, of which article the Tunisians export 



no TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

many thousands yearly, costs thirty or forty francs, 
so that it was easy for European industry to get 
hold of this important article of trade. But there 
are still hundreds here who earn their living by it. 

A few walks through the bazaars of Tunis acquaint 
the traveller with the secrets of the whole Moorish 
industry, and the workmen, for all their religious 
fanaticism, are always ready to give every explana- 
tion required. They produce here, with the most 
primitive tools, the most astonishing pieces of work, 
which testify, to the skilfulness as well as to the 
untiring perseverance and patience of the Moorish 
workmen. At the same time they are very un- 
practical. Gunsmiths and armourers, for instance, 
still work at the historical Kabyle guns, but instead 
of hardening the barrel and improving the lock, they 
concentrate all their attention to the beautiful orna- 
mentation. The gun is to the harmless Bedouin 
only a piece of ostentation, whatever Frenchmen 
may say ; he carries it as the European does a walk- 
ing stick. They still manufacture a great number 
of guns with match and fire locks, spending upon 
them the labour of weeks in chasing the barrels 
and ornamenting them by inlaid silver threads, and 
also carving the butt-end most artistically. The 
cabinetmakers confine themselves to making trunks, 
cupboards, and pretty ornaments of mother-of-pearl 
and ivory. 

The locksmiths still make the large Saracen 
locks and giant keys, embellishing them in a charm- 
ing manner, but without improving their construction. 
In no respect have the Moors stuck to the Middle 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. m 

Ages so persistently as in their industries. Their 
ancient looms, their primitive turning -lathes and 
tools have been transmitted from father to son, and 
they remind us of similar objects as we find them 
in European museums dating from our own Middle 
Ages. If European influence is visible, it only 
works disadvantageously. Thus they adapted only 
too willingly the European designs for their carpets 
and other materials, and only in the holy town of 
Kaironan has their carpet industry been preserved 
in its old glory. 

The " suk " in which the carpets are sold, and 
the beautiful woollen covers, camel -pockets, saddle- 
cloths, girdles, etc., made by the Bedouin women, 
belongs to the most interesting part of the bazaar. 
The gold and silver embroideries merit our admira- 
tion especially. They show the most exquisite 
designs and the finest work, and the velvet jackets 
and velvet trousers, which are exhibited in the so- 
called women's bazaar, could scarcely be produced 
as beautifully by European workers, nevertheless 
they are of astonishing cheapness. 

In the " Suk-el-Irba," or women's bazaar, we have 
an opportunity of studying the secrets of a Moorish 
woman's toilet, for what is hidden in the harem is 
offered here for sale to customers wishing to buy. 
Here we see the chemisettes of fine gauze interwoven 
with gold threads, embroidered bodices, the strangely- 
formed velvet caps, silk striped garments of glaring 
colours, embroidered slippers, etc. And even more, 
next to the shops, the embroiderers and weavers are 
working, spinning-wheels are whirling, looms are 



ua TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

rattling, and we see the single articles come out 
finished from under the hands of these busy, untiring 
producers. 

The most distinguished bazaars of Tunis are 
the spice, perfume, and jewel bazaars. In the 
first of these sit the Moors, pale, but handsome, 
in narrow window -seats surrounded by perfume 
bottles, boxes, ostrich eggs, bags with musk, bowls 
with dyes, wax -candles, and so on. The space is 
so limited that the seller can neither sit straight 
nor turn round. So he sits in his picturesque 
costume all day long, without calling to customers 
or inducing them in any other way to buy. If 
he sells nothing for weeks he does not complain. 
The customer is sent by Providence, and as a firm 
believer in fatalism, he thinks there is no necessity 
to assist it. 

The jewel bazaar is entirely in the hands of Jews. 
The shops here are just as small, and the stock-in- 
trade is limited in every shop to a few pairs of 
earrings, half a dozen rings, bracelets and ankle- 
clasps, brooches and hair - pins. The Oriental 
generally, but especially the Oriental women, love 
jewels better than anything, and no present pleases 
them more than jewellery. The work is in most 
cases very crude, the form clumsy, and if there is 
any fine work to be found — like filigree, for instance 
— it is imported from Europe. A fraud in regard 
to the quality of the gold is scarcely possible, for as 
soon as an article is chosen buyer and seller go to 
the "anim," chief. He sits in a small open shop, 



THE BAZAARS OF TUNIS. 113 

weighs the article carefully, examines the standard 
of the gold, and puts the Bey's mark on. As soon 
as the value of the gold is calculated, the buyer has 
to pay a trifle for the work. 

Every morning between eight and nine there is 
a sale by auction, when now and then bargains can 
be got. At this hour there is the largest crowd, and 
sometimes the throng is so great that a movement 
either forward or backward is impossible, visitors 
being wedged in between Bedouins, Jews, Moors, and 
Maltese — all this amongst screaming and shouting, 
there being altogether an excitement not to be 
expected from these grave and dignified Moham- 
medans. As the day advances the emptier do the 
bazaars get, and in the afternoon there are no more 
customers, but only idlers and the friends of the 
merchants. 

Besides this great bazaar there are several smaller 
ones in different suburbs. For instance, the Jews 
have their own bazaar, dating from the time when 
the entry into the Mohammedan one was forbidden 
to them. Provisions, including vegetables and fruit, 
are also offered in different bazaars all over the 
town, of which the largest is the so-called " Suk-el- 
Asr," or afternoon market, which is specially distin- 
guished by dirt and refuse of all sorts. In these 
vegetable markets there is plenty of life in the 
afternoon. Near the sea -gate, in the heart of the 
Franks' quarter, the Europeans have their own 
bazaar, which in plan and character resembles those 
of the small ports in the Mediterranean, and is in 
no wise worthy of the importance and magnitude of 

I 



H4 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

the European colony. Italians and Maltese are 
here the principal element, and the goods come in 
most cases from Leghorn and Genoa. But with 
the entry of the French this will probably soon be 
altered. 



IN THE GHETTO. xi% 



CHAPTER X. 

IN THE GHETTO. 

AMONGST all the countries known to us, Morocco 
and Tunis are the only ones where the Jewish 
element has preserved its patriarchal customs of 
olden times, and where it still occupies the excep- 
tional position imposed upon it by despotism. The 
greater the liberties which other countries granted 
them, the more they amalgamated with the people 
— as, for instance, in France and England — without, 
however, giving up their religion unconditionally ; in 
Tunis they only obtained this liberty latterly, and 
then only limited. The curious habits and pecu- 
liarities which adhere to them would, considering 
their wonderful capacity to accommodate themselves 
to all circumstances, disappear as quickly here as 
they have done in the neighbouring Algiers, but 
they still live the life of their fathers. This latter 
is, in its strange mixture of Arabian, Jewish, and 
Spanish customs, so interesting that a description 
will be justified. The importance of the Jewish 
element increases, moreover, in the towns of Barbary, 
and also in the districts near the Sahara, more and 



u6 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 




ARABIAN FABLE-TELLERS. 



more ; in all the towns on the African coasts it 
actually forms from a third to a fifth of the whole 



IN THE GHETTO. 117 

populace. Since the Jews enjoy the protection of 
the Consuls and greater rights on the part of the 
Governments, they supplant the Arabs more and 
more in trade and industry, so that the time is not 
far off when they will be the more important element 
of the districts along the coasts. 

It has lasted long enough before the Jews enjoyed 
in those countries an existence worthy of human 
dignity. Centuries of the greatest misery and of 
the most cruel oppression have succeeded in bending 
them, but with the toughness peculiar to their race, 
they have revived since they share the rights and 
liberties of the hereditary people. It is therefore 
not to be wondered at if the Moors and Bedouins 
look at them with an evil eye and fear them. This 
fear and jealousy is added to the hatred of centuries, 
and the old " Dshifa, ben Dshifa " (carrion, son of 
carrion), is still the usual designation when they 
speak of Jews. Perhaps it would not have come 
to this if the Jews, according to a Moorish legend, 
had not occasioned it themselves in olden times. 
In the second century of the Hegira they insulted 
the caravan which every year takes the presents of 
the Mohammedans to Mecca. The wrath of God 
punished all men and boys of the Jewish race by 
death for this outrage on the Prophet. But to save 
the race from total perdition, God granted them the one 
grace at their request, namely, to rise from the dead 
for one night and to return to their wives. Hence 
all Jews born since are called " Dshifa, ben Dshifa," 
and this legend will partly explain the contempt 
which fanatical Mohammedans express for Jews. 



n8 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

The oppressions to which those latter are exposed, 
even to this day, are almost incredible. In Algiers 
the French Government emancipated them some 
forty years ago, but in Tunis, Morocco, and Tripolis 
they only got certain liberties during the last few 
years. Till then they had to live in a certain 
quarter, and were not allowed to appear in the 
streets after sunset. It they were compelled to go 
out at night they had to provide themselves with a 
sort of cat-o'-nine-tails at the next guard-house of 
the " Zaptieh," which served as a kind of passport to 
the patrols going round at night. If it was a dark 
night, they were not allowed to carry a lantern like 
the Moors and Turks, but a candle, which the wind 
extinguished every minute. They were neither 
allowed to ride on horseback nor on a mule, and even 
to ride on a donkey was forbidden them except out- 
side the town ; they had then to dismount at the 
gates, and walk in the middle of the streets, so as 
hot to be in the way of Arabs. If they had to pass 
the " Kasba," they had first to fall on their knees as 
a sign of submission, and then to walk on with 
lowered head ; before coming to a mosque they were 
obliged to take the slippers off their feet, and had to 
pass the holy edifice without looking at it. As Tunis 
possesses no less than five hundred mosques, it will 
be seen that Jews did not wear out many shoes at 
that time. It was worse even in their intercourse 
with Mussulmans : if one of these fancied himself 
insulted by a Jew, he stabbed him at once, and had 
only to pay a fine to the State, by way of punish- 
ment As late as 1868 seventeen Jews were 



IN THE GHETTO. 119 

murdered in Tunis without the offenders having been 
punished for it : often a Minister or General was in 
the plot, to enrich himself with the money of the 
murdered ones. Nor was that all. The Jews — 
probably to show their gratefulness for being allowed 
to live in the town, or to live at all — had to pay 
5 0,000 piastres monthly to the State as a tax ! 

And, notwithstanding all these oppressions and 
humiliations, the Jews continued to assert themselves 
in the midst of the Moorish populace, and could even 
boast of greater wealth than their oppressors, over 
whom they gained an advantage by their superior 
capacities and greater cunning. The Tunisians were 
in want of the Jews to get rid of the booty they 
brought home from their piratical expeditions. How 
the Jews managed to buy and sell these goods, con- 
sidering their strict exclusion, is a puzzle. But still, 
they always possessed the money to buy the stolen 
wares, to lend money on precious stones, and turn 
gold and coins into jewels. 

Many Jews, especially those whose ancestors were 
driven from Spain, have by reciprocal services or 
bribery succeeded in putting themselves under the 
protection of the European Consulates, and so escaped 
the power and jurisdiction of the Bey and his Minis- 
ters. This is the reason that some of the Consulates 
in Tunis count their subjects or protigis by hundreds, 
and even thousands, amongst the Tunisian Jews. 

In our days when, through the agency of the 
Consuls, especially the French one, the oppression of 
the Jews has come to an end, and when they are 
equal before the law with Moors, Bedouins, and 



i2o TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Christians, they have no more cause to hide their 
wealth. They build new houses in European style, 
show themselves in smart new dresses, and, owing to 
their intellectual superiority, get business into their 
own hands with surprising rapidity. The old servants 
and slaves have become the masters of the Arabs, 
at least as far as business and finances go. They, 
once scorned, occupy now honoured positions in the 
Government. The Bey's treasurer is a Jew. There 
are amongst them many physicians, bankers, mer- 
chants, stockbrokers, and lawyers, who do business 
with the Government, and who, compared with their 
Arabian colleagues, occupy a better position and 
have a more lucrative income. But the Arabians still 
avoid them. The social ban to which they have 
been subject for centuries past exists still to-day, 
though more to the disadvantage of the Arabian than 
their own. In that same bazaar where once they 
were debarred from trading otherwise than in the 
" Suk-el-Zara " (jewel bazaar), they are masters now, 
and have driven the Moorish dealer from many 
streets. Thanks to the beneficent activity of the 
Paris Society " Union Israelite," poor Jewish children 
are sent to good schools and taught some trade or 
a branch of industry gratuitously. Besides Arabic, 
their own language, they learn French and Italian ; 
and they show so much talent that no doubt before 
another generation has passed they will, financially, 
be masters of all the commerce in the whole Regency. 
In the little streets of Tunis, narrow, but ever lively, 
they form the most important element. The Arab 
has neither their dexterity nor their volubility. He 



IN THE GHETTO. 121 



visits his bazaar, prays much, walks little, and lets 
Allah take care of the rest. The task of his life is 
not to make money, but to enjoy peace and content- 
ment. This makes it easier for the Jew to work 
himself up so quickly from the depths in which the 
oppression of centuries kept him. Amongst the 
many nations and races of which the population of 
this interesting old piratical city is composed, the 
Jews are the second in number, and the finest in race. 
Though the Moors are often called handsome, they 
are generally far too stout, and their features too 
effeminate, to be able to claim manly beauty. Dur- 
ing the afternoons, especially on Saturdays, an 
opportunity offers on the Marina, the beautiful 
promenade of Tunis, to make comparisons. Kabyles, 
Moors, Vandals, Bedouins, Turks, and Europeans of 
all nations move here in a dense crowd. The Jew is 
known at once by his looks and by his dress. Tall 
and strongly-built, with fine, noble features and long 
beards, they show still more to advantage in their 
peculiar, picturesque costumes. They are not bound 
to wear a certain dress, as formerly, but they seem 
desirous of their hereditary appearance. They have 
only changed their head-dress. Formerly they were 
forbidden to wear the red fez or sheshia of the Arab, 
but wore the prescribed black turban wound round a 
white fez — a kind of nightcap. They have now 
adopted the red fez, but keep to the black turban, 
while the younger generation has given up the turban 
altogether. They are allowed to wear the white 
turban of the Arabs, but they never make use of this 
permission Their short jackets are of a light colour, 



122 TUNIS ; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

richly embroidered with gold and open in front ; 
and while the old orthodox Jews still keep to the 
black trousers, with many folds tied below the knee, 
the younger generation has adopted light-coloured 
ones. They all wear snow-white stockings ; and the 
yellow or red leather slippers of the Arabs have been 
discarded by the Jewish swell in favour of the patent 
leather shoes imported from Europe, but which he 
treads down, so that his heel projects one or two 
inches beyond the shoe. A broad shawl, generally 
richly embroidered, is thrown round the loins, and 
while in winter their costume is completed by a long 
circular cloak of light blue colour, they replace this in 
summer by a fine cloak of spotless whiteness, called 
the R'fara. 

Neither they nor the Arabs carry arms ; and they 
are scarcely necessary in Tunis, which is safer than 
European towns. Stately as a Jew's appearance is, 
and tasteful as is his dress, it is only so as long as 
he keeps his fez on his head. Like the Arabs, they 
are in the habit of shaving their heads, only leaving 
a small tuft of hair on the top, which has a most 
ludicrous effect. 

It is not very long ago that the Jews, who number 
30,000 here, were allowed to live in a Moorish 
quarter ; and the limits of their own quarter were so 
strictly fixed and watched, that they scarcely dared 
to step beyond it, the more so if a mosque was in 
the neighbourhood. They were oppressed, tortured, 
and robbed by the Tunisian rulers. Their wives and 
daughters were treated in an arbitrary manner, and 



IN THE GHETTO. 123 

their own lives were taken with impunity. Still they 
were obliged to remain, for, driven out of Europe, 
they had settled here, and having in the course of 
generations lost their own language, had adopted 
Arabic instead. They were deprived of the possibility 
of acquiring riches by the Draconic laws of the 
Tunisian despots, so they built their own miserable 
houses or bought them in quarters left by the Moors. 
But in one respect they had an advantage over the 
Arabs : they increased very rapidly : and whereas 
the original Jews' quarter only covered a small space, 
it actually takes up to-day a fourth part of the whole 
town, still spreading, and consequently driving the 
Moors from the neighbouring streets. 

The strange costumes of the Jewish women, the 
handsome men I met in Tunis, and the many 
peculiar habits and customs of which I had heard so 
much before, induced me to devote more attention 
to the Jewish quarter than other travellers had done 
until now. During my stay of several months in 
Tunis, I spent many a day in the midst of this 
strange people, and was the witness of many a 
family festivity and public occurrence. They re- 
ceived me everywhere with the greatest readiness 
and attention ; and my experiences did not at all 
agree with the reports of former travellers, especially 
Maltzan, who one and all described them, more or 
less, as depraved. 

He who enters the Jews' quarter for the first 
time is astonished how it is possible for human 
beings to live here, and to carry on business and 



i2 4 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

have intercourse into the bargain. There is an 
indescribable entanglement of narrow, angular lanes, 
twisted and interlaced in all directions, where the 
rays of the sun never penetrate entirely. There is 
no passage in this endless labyrinth where you 
could not touch the walls on both sides if you 
stretched out your arms. If they are a little 
broader in some places, this waste of room is com- 
pensated for a little lower down, where the lane is 
so narrow that two people meeting have to press 
against the wall if they wish to pass each other. 
The houses are generally one or two stories high, 
they are dingy, dirty, and dilapidated. Some hang 
over the street as if they wanted to prop each other 
up and prevent a possible fall ; others are built right 
across, and form dark, long passages, from which 
dampness and dirt do not disappear summer or 
winter, and which remain cool even under a burning 
sun. On the upper floor there are usually one or 
two grated windows, just as in Moorish houses, 
which in their outward appearance they resemble 
altogether. The pavement is miserable, full of big 
stones and • deep holes covered with puddles and 
every refuse, which, being never removed, putrefies 
and exhales in summer the most offensive smells. 
This accumulation of dirt of centuries may be the 
reason why the streets are all higher than the houses, 
and that only by going down a few steps the inner 
yard is reached. This is partly the fault of the 
owners of these pest-houses, but the greater blame 
falls on the shoulders of the local authorities. They 
receive from each family in Tunis six piastres (three 



IN THE GHETTO. \2\ 

shillings) yearly, as a tax for removing all dirt from 
the streets, whereas the families have done their 
duty when they have forwarded the filth from their 
houses and piled it up in the middle of the narrow 
street But how is the cleansing of streets possible 
when scarcely two or three streets are wide enough 
to admit a small cart or even a beast of burden ? 
So the filth remained ; it was partly washed away 
by the rain, while the rest settled by the constant 
traffic. Occasionally holes had been filled up with 
stones, and so the streets are higher now than the 
houses. 

The houses are nearly all alike, and all seem 
poor and decayed, even desolate. There are good 
reasons for that. The Tunisian officials and dig- 
nitaries, from the Prime Minister down to the 
common soldier, took every opportunity to oppress 
and rob the Jews. They need only hear that this 
one or the other possessed great wealth to be after 
him at once for the purpose of confiscating his 
fortune for the paltriest of reasons, or to extort as 
many thousands of piastres as they thought he was 
worth. The Jews had therefore to hide their wealth, 
which, doubtless, was very great, as much as pos- 
sible, and this reason contributed to their leaving 
their streets in this dreadful state. There is an end 
of this to-day, and the Jews build their houses on 
the Marina and in the European quarter. 

But for all this the Hebrews are very religious 
here : they keep their festivals conscientiously, and 
are attached to their religious service. Strange are 
their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which seem as holy 



126 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

to them as those of the Moslems to Mecca. Every 
year a number of pious Jews leave their homes to 
walk through the deserts of Tripolis and Egypt to 
Palestine. The difficulties and dangers of this 
endless journey do not prevent them wandering to 
the cradle of their race, there to end their days. 
Many go forth, but a few only reach the far-off goal, 
for the journey through the desert is too perilous. 
Rich Jews travel to Jerusalem by steamer and re- 
turn in the same way to Tunis. 

There are a great many synagogues in the Ghetto 
of Tunis, but most of them are poorly furnished and 
insignificant, scarcely to be distinguished from the 
ordinary houses. The entrances are small, half 
hidden ; the place where they worship lies deep 
under the earth, so that twenty or thirty steps have 
to be passed before it is reached. On a level with 
the street is a gallery leading into the synagogue ; it 
is barred, and is intended for the women. These 
are not allowed to enter the synagogue itself. Many 
small lamps hang down from the ceiling ; along the 
walls run seats covered with straw, and in the centre 
is the raise'd platform for the rabbi, as is to be found 
in every synagogue. Saturdays bring much of life 
into these synagogues. Christians are allowed to be 
present at the service, and are even welcome, though 
the spectacle offered them here is not very flattering 
to the Jews. All the worshippers wear round their 
shoulders a broad white shawl with black stripes at 
the edges, and round the lower arm a black leather 
strap is wound Very few are devout during the 
time of service ; some sing, others talk and laugh, 



IN THE GHETTO. 127 

and while the rabbi prays he looks about him in so 
indifferent a manner that it has always been a puzzle 
to me how the Tunisian Jews could possibly be 
called pious. To me the synagogue seemed ex- 
change, dancing-room, and coffee-house at the same 
time, and the hour of prayer anything but edifying. 
Only for one moment, towards the end of the service, 
did they interrupt the uproar, and also silenced the 
boys who were running about the whole place. I 
was told afterwards it was the moment when the 
rabbi gives absolution to his flock for their sins for 
a whole month, a custom which probably exists 
nowhere else amongst Jews. After this solemn 
moment, during which all those present embraced 
and kissed each other, they folded their shawls and 
leather straps and left the place. 

Benevolence is one of the greatest virtues of 
Tunisian Jews. The rabbis, for instance, live ex- 
clusively by alms ; the sick poor are nursed by the 
Jewish community, and physician and medicines 
s^nt to their homes, as to this day the Jews possess 
no hospital in Tunis. Up to recent times every- 
thing concerning schools was in a very backward 
state. Only very lately an excellent school was 
founded by the munificence of the Jewish Baron 
Castelnuovo, a noble and high-minded man, who was 
formerly physician to King Victor Emanuel, and 
by the Austrian Baron Hirsch. The " Union Israel- 
ite" supports it, and eight hundred children are 
instructed there gratuitously. They also begin to 
dress those children in the European style. There 
is a second school which was founded by the London 



128 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Society for the conversion of the Jews, and which is 
very well administered by the English missionary, 
Frankel ; four hundred children are taught there, 
of whom about one hundred are girls ; all of these 
show great talent for languages and a great wish to 
learn. They study amongst other things the New 
Testament and the Christian religion, and the parents 
have no objection to it. Whether this arises from 
religious indifference, or the consciousness that the 
Christian doctrines will not make any deep im- 
pression, but that the secular instruction only will 
be listened to, I cannot tell, but I presume the latter. 



THE JEWISH WOMEN OF TUNIS. 129 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE JEWISH WOMEN OF TUNIS. 

I HAD already made the acquaintance of some Jews, 
to whom I expressed my wish to see their families 
and their homes. They seemed highly pleased and 
proud that a European wished to visit them. Had 
they not suffered from the oppression and abuse of 
their fellow-creatures for centuries, and does not their 
quarter remain untouched by the foot of the faithful 
to this day? They feel that amelioration can only 
come from Europeans, so they cling to the " Rumi " 
(Christian). They took me through the Ghetto of 
Tunis. The houses there differ from Moorish ones 
by always being open; women and children sit 
about on the steps, all in a strange and, according 
to European ideas, indecent negligee ; through the 
grated windows I spied many a pretty girl's face, not 
yet fat and puffed up like the women. The dirt of 
the streets and the miserable look of the whole 
quarter do not give us the idea of cleanliness, but 
these women look like pretty women on a dunghill. 
Their tight-fitting trousers and their stockings are 
snow-white, face, hands, and neck scrupulously clean, 

K 



130 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and their houses swept and scrubbed. Let us enter 
one of these houses. They are very much like the 
Moorish ones, and also built by Moors. Through a 
narrow corridor we reach a small glass-covered or 
open yard, surrounded by windows and doors on 
every side. In better houses colonnades or galleries 
run round every floor, in poor ones only wooden 
balconies. Every house is inhabited by several 
families, who each live on a flat, sometimes on one 
side of the flat only, so that scarcely more than one 
sitting-room and two or three sleeping-rooms fall to 
the share of each, all these rooms being exceedingly 
small. The walls of the yard, as well as the yard 
itself, are covered with the small tiles glazed and 
painted often mentioned before, and which in rich 
houses also cover the walls inside up to the ceiling. 

In the house of my Jewish cicerone (guide) there 
lived eight families, all more or less related. The 
different doors all stood wide open, for the few small 
windows did not give sufficient light. The women 
saluted me with a friendly smile, while they murmured 
their " Assalaum," and touched their lips with their 
fingers. When I entered my friend's sitting-room, his 
wife was sitting on a bed in rather a loose attire, and 
was suckling a boy. I wished to withdraw quickly, 
but the wife, a young woman of some twenty years, 
pretty, but rather stout, looked at me with such an 
innocent smile, and seemed to be so little concerned 
about her deficient toilet that my shyness was over- 
come, and I complied with the husband's invitation 
to sit down on the low divan. Soon the room filled 
with the other ladies of the house, who stood before 



THE JEWISH WOMEN OF TUNIS. 131 

me in the costume of ballet-girls or crouched on the 
floor. Face to face with such a phalanx of female 
beauty — for they were all young and beautiful — I 
felt rather embarrassed, the more so, as the master of 
the house left me to my fate and retired. I felt as 
if I had been transferred suddenly into a Moorish 
harem. There was absolutely no subject for conver- 
sation, so I began to speak about the lovely embroidery 
on their clothes. This seemed to be a most welcome 
one, and now the ice being broken they began to tell 
me in their strange mixture of Jewish Arabic about 
their treasures, trinkets, and head-dresses, etc. Some 
ran away to fetch their best garments, including those 
used at weddings ; the hostess herself opened her 
trunks to show me her gala-dresses, and I was really 
astonished at the luxurious toilet of these apparently 
poorer Jewesses. The velvet trousers were beautifully 
embroidered with gold, and Madame Gialuly assured 
me that between 300 and 600 piastres up to £15 
is paid for them. The silk tunic and the " kufia " 
(head-dress) are just as dear. When I asked per- 
mission to see their homes every one of the young 
housewives wanted to show me hers first. They are 
nearly alike, and the only distinction is more or less 
expensive furniture. One half of their sitting-room 
is taken up by an immense bed of state, of which 
they seem very proud. There is besides a large 
painted trunk in which the wardrobe of the family is 
kept ; in the place of tables and chairs, they have the 
broad divan which runs round the room. Lamps 
hang down from the ceilings, tied with coloured paper 
chains and paper flowers ; the framed pictures are 



132 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

common, such as we buy in Europe for a few pence. 
They generally represent women in all sorts of 
classical attitudes. These lithographs are, together 
with trophies of arms, the only ornaments for the 
walls, even in the houses of millionaires, and I cannot 
remember having seen a painting in oil. The divans 
are covered with coloured cotton materials, and 
instead of backs they have halfa-mats, which are 
fastened to the walls. In the tiny sleeping-rooms 
which they possess besides, only primitive beds and 
wash-hand basins are to be found. The stately bed 
in the sitting-room is not used by the family, but 
serves as divan for female visitors. The kitchens, 
in which their simple meals of bread and kusskussu 
are prepared, are on the ground floor. Some rich 
families into whose houses I was introduced boast of 
several reception-rooms, but they were so crowded 
with tasteless European furniture that this kind of 
" European civilisation " is only to be regretted. 

What struck me most in all the houses was the 
impression of an open bleeding hand on every wall 
of each floor. However white the walls this repulsive 
sign was to be seen everywhere. A Jewess never 
goes out here without taking with her a hand carved 
in coral or ivory — she thinks it a talisman against the 
" evil eye," or " mal occhio." The Jews are not less 
superstitious than the Moslems, and some good stories 
are told about this. When his children's pictures or 
horses are praised the Tunisian Jew extends his five 
fingers or pronounces the number " five ;" he tries by 
this means to prevent the praise doing any damage. In 
quite a harmless way I used to praise the looks of the 



THE JEWISH WOMEN OF TUNIS. 133 

beautiful Jewish children, and was surprised at the 
dreadful nervousness and excitement which befell the 
parents in consequence. They stood before me stiff 
and trembling as if I had sent through them an electric 
current. If one of them has to leave the town for 
some time, or if he has to make a sea-voyage, the old 
women pour water after him. If a welcome guest 
arrives, they break some vessel on the sill. There 
are a great many other similar usages of the same 
kind proving their superstition. 

I found in several houses two or more women in 
the same dwelling. At first I took them for sisters 
or relations, but later I found out that they were all 
the legitimate wives of one and the same man. 
Polygamy is no more the custom amongst Tunisian 
Jews than amongst Moslems, because few only possess 
the means for so costly a luxury. We have seen the 
price of a pair of pantaloons, and the grandes dames 
here change these as often as fashionable ladies in 
Europe. A real Mormon marriage, then, is rarely 
found in Tunis ; but if found, it does not seem to be 
disturbed by quarrels or jealousy. The Jews marry 
when they are almost children ; the glow of love is 
over at a time which we consider the best time of 
youth, and matrimonial happiness turns into Platonic 
friendship when they are in the flower of manhood, 
and womanhood. Separations are rare amongst 
Jews. The love for parents and children, and family 
ties in general, are considered holy ; and if the moral 
standard is not a high one notwithstanding — if, on the 
contrary, whole streets and even quarters swarm with 
Jewish houses of ill-fame, the reason has to be sought 



r34 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

in the poverty and misery from which the greater 
number of Jews still suffer. The Jews increase much 
faster than the Mohammedans ; families are very 
numerous ; and daughters are not easily married, and 
have to get their living anyhow. 

The costume of the Jewesses is just as ugly as 
the dress of the Jews has been shown to be pictur- 
esque and beautiful. It is scarcely possible to imagine 
a toilet more tasteless and odd. Seen from a distance, 
Jewesses resemble ballet-girls, of whose body the 
upper part seems wrapped in a sack down to the 
hips. The stranger who meets such a figure for 
Jne first time fancies he sees a woman who has 
forgotten to dress herself, and is rather perplexed. 
The costume of a Jewess, whether a child or an old 
woman, consists of very few articles. Over the 
nether garment, made of white linen, they wear a 
small, gold-embroidered velvet jacket, a pair of white, 
very tight pantaloons, which reach to the ankle, 
and differ in nothing from the tights of ballet-girls. 
Short white socks cover, as a rule, their small feet, 
of which the points are covered by tiny, black kid 
slippers, scarcely protecting half the foot ; or they 
wear high wooden sandals. Over the upper part 
of the body a baggy chemise falls down to the hips, 
made of red, yellow, or light-green silk, and their 
head is covered by the velvet "kufia" embroidered 
in gold and shaped like a sugar-loaf, and is tied by 
a red, or yellow silk ribbon. On their arms and 
necks they wear heavy gold chains and bracelets, 
and face and hands are uncovered. It is unfortunate 
for European tastes that these Jewesses are locked 



THE JEWISH WOMEN OF TUNIS. 135 

up in small dark rooms when they have reached 
their tenth year, where they are submitted to a 
systematic fattening, by being fed with farinaceous 
food and the flesh of young dogs, till in a few months 
they have turned into shapeless lumps of fat, and 
would make the fortune of any owner of a wander- 
ing show at a fair. 

With most Tunisian Jewish women this fatness 
is prodigious, and is all the more conspicuous in 
consequence of the tight-fitting dress, which shows 
every form. If it is to be wondered at how men 
can admire these artificially fattened beauties, it is 
still more astonishing that the Jewesses themselves 
keep to these tights with such tenacity amongst all 
the Moorish and European modes of dress seen here, 
though it ought to be mentioned that, according to 
some historians, these garments were part of the 
dress of the old Biblical Jews. Women who have 
kept their natural form because the attempts at 
fattening have not succeeded, look better in these 
toilets, at least according to our ideas ; and there 
is no doubt that the Jewesses of Tunis would far 
surpass in beauty their sisters in Europe if nature 
were not interfered with. Their faces are beautiful, 
their hair is abundant, falling down in long plaits, 
and their eyes, lustrous and enormously large, often 
plead an excuse for their colossal bodies, and turn 
many a tourist's head. But this fashion was adopted 
centuries ago by African women, and it has now 
become general. Here, as everywhere, fashion con- 
quers nature — an easy process, as it has the support 
of the weak sex. Fashion's freaks are not the same 



136 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

here as in Europe, and seem as ridiculous to us as 
ours appear to them. The Jewesses have a repulsive 
way of painting themselves. Their cheeks are too 
id to want painting, but all the more vermilion is 
put on the lips. The powder-box is unknown, but 
its place is taken by a herb called " henna," which 
is used by Arabian women as well. When boiled 
it produces a brown colour, and into this ladies dip 
their fingers and dye them down to the first joint. 
They also dye the place between the eyebrows to 
such a degree that it disfigures even the prettiest 
face. At great festivities, like weddings and birthdays, 
or sometimes even when walking, the Jewesses enrich 
their toilet without making it more beautiful : they 
add a white mantilla, reaching scarcely to their knees. 
They are rarely accompanied by their husbands, and 
do their own shopping ; but even in the remotest 
parts of the town they are no longer exposed to the 
insults of former years. 

The present Bey dislikes not only Jewesses but 
women in general, so that harems are not paramount. 
His predecessor, on the other hand, was in this 
respect a thorough Oriental ruler. His paternal eye 
fell not only on believing beauties, but even Jewesses 
found favour before him. As the Bey was grateful 
and generous, the poor Jews, still oppressed, were 
only too happy to meet the Bey's wishes, and to 
allow their daughters to bask in the sun of the ruler. 
It is said that from that time dates the excessive 
immorality of the Jews in Tunis. 

Considering the misery which, down to our days, 
reigned amongst the greatest number of Jews, and con- 



THE JEWISH WOMEN OF TUNIS. 137 



sidering also the endless curtailments and humiliations 
they were so long exposed to, and finally keeping in 
mind the wretched example the Mohammedans set 
them in palace and hut, it is not to be wondered at 
that a great number of their women camp to grief. 



138 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

A JEWISH WEDDING. 

UPON no occasion do the singular customs of the 
Jews appear so clearly as at their weddings. In 
many respects resembling those of the Moors, and 
just as expensive and as protracted as theirs, the Jews 
lave one advantage — they do not take a wife with- 
out having seen her before. While the Moor can 
only judge his future wife by the recommendations of 
aunts and cousins, the Jews have ample opportunities 
to see the unveiled faces, and more, of theirs. The 
betrothed is not asked her opinion, neither is her 
consent required ; and in this, the most important 
step of her "life, she is entirely guided by her female 
relations. 

The Tunisian Jews are almost children when they 
marry — girls at from thirteen to fifteen years of age ; 
boys at from sixteen to eighteen. As soon as a girl 
is ten or twelve years old, the greatest attention is 
paid to her outward appearance, which means being 
treated like a Strasburg goose, as described above. 
The more massive her shoulders, the sleeker and 
redder her cheeks, the fatter her arms and legs, the 



A JEWISH WEDDING. 139 

higher the price the Jewish parents may expect at 
her marriage. In no part of the world — the negro 
countries of equatorial Africa excepted — is female 
beauty valued by weight as in the Ghetto of Tunis. 

Weeks before the wedding-day the marriage 
festivities begin with the visits of all friends and 
relations in the house of the betrothed. The pre- 
sents which her intended has sent her — dresses, 
slippers, perfumes, soaps, dyes, and trinkets, all are 
exhibited ; the visitors examine their value, and to 
fix this value is the only subject of conversation 
amongst the visitors. About a week before the 
wedding, the public festivities commence, when the 
fiancee t surrounded by her female relations and friends, 
and accompanied by some musicians, goes to the 
" Hammam " (Bath). From this moment the girl 
is a victim of ancient customs up to the hour of 
her wedding. She may not open her mouth, she 
has no will of her own, but has to do what the old 
matrons command. In the bath her body is covered 
with a peculiar ointment, which, when dry, takes 
away all pellicles and hair, the hair of the head 
of course excepted. This, her finest ornament, is 
anointed by the busy matrons with a jet black 
pomatum, to give it that blue gloss peculiar to 
gipsies. The eyelids are brushed with little blackened 
brushes, and painted — the bushy eyebrows, beauti- 
fully arched, are further marked by a thick red line, 
which unites them. Besides dyeing the tops of their 
fingers as mentioned before, they also dip their toe- 
nails into the same solution of " henna," which colours 
them permanently brown. From day to day every 



i 4 o TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

exertion is made to beautify the young woman from 
their point of view. The next ceremony is the so- 
called "search for the chicken." The girl hides in 
her house a chicken prepared by her, and it is the 
task of her intended and his friends to look for it. 
He who finds it marries in the same year, an event still 
considered in this country a piece of good fortune in 
spite of all the ceremonies, cares, and expenses con- 
nected with it ! 

About this time the friends and relations are 
invited to the wedding. Rich people have invita- 
tions printed in the only printing office established 
two years since in this country. Through the 
intercession of a diplomat known to me, I got an 
invitation to a wedding in one of the richest and 
most respected families in Tunis. The invited 
guests assembled in the bridegroom's house, which, 
furnished half in Oriental, half in European style, was 
again an example of European influence and inno- 
vations. The master of the house, dressed like 
a European, received us at the foot of the staircase. 
The numerous reception-rooms were already filled 
with guests, a motley crowd of Europeans of all 
classes, of dignitaries and officers, of Jews and 
Jewesses in their whimsical dresses. But there were 
no Arabians. The Arabs and Jews have about as 
much love for each other as Christians and Jews in 
Eastern Europe. Their intercourse is limited to the 
inevitable, but they avoid each other when possible. 
Amongst the guests present, numbering several 
hundreds, the Jewish girls attracted most attention, 
partly by their rich and costly dresses, partly by 



A JEWISH WEDDING. 141 

their abnormal corpulence. It was almost possible 
to tell the age of these lumps of flesh, who lacked 
all grace and mobility, by the greater or lesser 
quantity of fat. The younger they were, the more 
delicate were their forms, the more beautiful and 
womanly their features, so that the greatest beauties 
were found amongst the children, who, though under 
seven or eight years old, were already quite developed. 
We saw some amongst these women who would have 
beaten any of those specimens of corpulence shown 
for money, though their stature never exceeded 
middle height. The Tunisian Jewesses are, on the 
contrary, much shorter than the European ones, a 
circumstance which still increases their shapeless- 
ness ; if you add to this their costume, unsurpassed 
for tastelessness — the short light -coloured chemises, 
falling loosely down to their hips, the funny little 
cap stuck on the tops of their head (kufia), and 
finally those pantaloons, so well calculated to show 
their enormous legs — you have as complete a cari- 
cature of a woman as can well be imagined. But 
there prevails in this most unaesthetic style of dress a 
richness of colour and a beauty of material which 
almost compensates for the ugly pattern of the cut. 
Most of the materials of which the dresses both of 
the Arabian women and Jewesses are made are the 
products of home industry, the only one almost 
which braved the importations from Europe, and 
in which the Tunisians are unsurpassed. Every 
material, from the heaviest silk and gold brocade 
down to the airiest silk gauze, is represented in 
the garments of a Jewess, whether rich or poor, 



142 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and those materials which Europe supplies, like 
velvet, are embroidered with silver and gold to such 
an extent that the original colour can scarcely be 
distinguished. And the tints are the richest, and 
though many -coloured most harmonious. This 
shows how one-sided the taste of the Oriental women 
is developed. While they have the highest percep- 
tion of colour, they have no eye whatever for the 
beauty of form. 

All the assembled Jewish wedding guests were 
loaded with jewels in the strictest sense of the word. 
In their ears they had long earrings, heavy with 
diamonds and pearls ; in their hair, and fastened to 
the head-dress, pins and rosettes ; their necks were 
covered with strings of pearls, and they wore diamond 
brooches of such an unusual size, and in such num- 
bers as I had never seen before, except in California. 
But the diamonds had no fire, were badly cut and 
worse set, and the form of their trinkets showed a 
curious mixture of the Moorish and Rococco styles. 

It was a strange picture, those women crouching 
on divans, along the walls ! The men, wrapped in 
their light -blue cloaks and the dark -blue Jewish 
turbans, stood together in groups without taking any 
notice of the women. Everybody waited for the 
master of the house to give the sign for starting. 
At last he stepped towards his wife and offered her 
his arm to take her down the staircase. The guests 
now followed the parents of the future bridegroom 
in a long procession. After having marched through 
the Ghetto in all its extent, we reached the house of 
his intended, which was also filled with guests. On 



A JEWISH WEDDING. 143 

entering, the ladies received us with a peculiar long- 
drawn shout of joy which reminded me of the war- 
cry of the prairie Indians — a cruel comparison, but 
upon which, with all deference to the Tunisian ladies, 
I must insist. In the large hall opposite the stair- 
case sat the future bride on a raised divan, in a dress 
of such magnificence and splendour that it baffles 
description. Her face was covered with a gold- 
embroidered veil, but the dimensions of her neck 
reminded us at once of the artificial fattening. The 
gold-brocaded upper-garment reached down to the 
hips. Her legs were encased in velvet pantaloons, 
tight and heavy, which were covered with gold braid 
and reached down to the ankles. She wore red silk 
stockings, her feet resting on gold -embroidered 
slippers, their heels just touching the middle of her 
sole. Her hands rested on her knees, her fingers 
being entirely covered with diamonds, and dyed 
down to the second joint with henna. 

Round her sat the cousins and aunts of the nume- 
rous family in the most eager conversation. In a 
corner stood the master of the ceremonies in his 
becoming Jewish costume, but without a cloak — this 
was nobody less than the bridegroom's barber. At 
Jewish weddings the barber 1 is just as indispensable 
as bride and bridegroom. He conducts the festivi- 
ties, gives good advice to the young couple, and 
introduces them to conjugal life. 

The house where we found ourselves encircled, 
like all other Jewish houses in Tunis, a yard covered 
with marble slabs and surrounded by colonnades, in 
1 Who, however, does not shave beards, but heads. 



144 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

the centre of which stood a pretty fountain. Here 
stood the Oriental musicians with their taburka 
and their two -stringed violin, and serenaded the 
bride. This over, her future father-in-law took her 
by the hand and led her into the yard, where they 
had put a heavy gilt easy-chair on a table ; with the 
help of a chair the bride mounts this improvised 
throne. The barber then pushed a small cushion 
under her, put her feet on it, and her hands on her 
knees in the manner of old Indian idols, and ar- 
ranged her dress. In the meanwhile the bridegroom 
had put himself next to the table ; he was dressed 
like a European, and carried a white handkerchief in 
his hand. The rabbis — venerable figures with long 
white beards — sang a few songs, and the lawyers 
drew out of their pockets a scroll of parchment on 
which the marriage contract was written, and which 
they read out in a nasal tone ; while this was going 
on the barber handed wine round to put the guests 
in a proper frame of mind. The contents of this 
marriage contract constitute a singular document. 
Name and position of those about to marry have no 
place in it". It treats principally of the fortune on 
both sides, of the presents, their value, appearance 
and weight ; this latter, calculated with the utmost 
exactitude. And as it is very easy with Tunisian 
Jews to get a separation, the husband having only 
to explain before two witnesses that she is no more 
his wife, the sum of indemnity to be paid to the 
wife in such a case is mentioned and fixed in this 
contract. The bride's father tries to enlarge this 
sum as much as possible, for, as a rule, this clause 



A JEWISH WEDDING. 145 

binds the marriage tie much more effectually than 
any laws could do it. After the reading of the 
contract, the barber takes the white silk handkerchief 
from the hands of the bridegroom and wraps them 
both up in it while the rabbi murmurs some sentences. 
After this the bridegroom takes a ring from his 
finger and puts it on the right hand of the bride. 
This is the signal for a general shout of joy, which 
drowned the music entirely. The married couple 
are now taken out of their white wrapper, and the 
bride takes off her veil for the first time. We stood 
right opposite her, and had the best opportunity to 
observe her truly beautiful features, unfortunately 
somewhat spoiled by paint and excessive fulness. 
While the screaming of the women still lasted, the 
barber filled a bumper with Marsala and offered it 
first to the parents of the young couple, then to the 
rabbis and the lawyers. Finally the barber emptied 
it and smashed it at the feet of the bride. This is 
done on account of the " evil eye," of which the very 
superstitious Jews are always afraid. Now the bride 
was taken down from her throne and conducted to 
the upper floor to receive the congratulations of the 
guests. The bridegroom, on the other hand, returns 
with the barber to the house of his parents to be 
congratulated by his own friends. By his side stood 
the barber with a little basket, into which each guest 
drops one or more gold pieces as a contribution to 
the bridegroom's outfit. After sunset all the guests 
assemble again • in the house of the bridegroom, 
where sweets and refreshments are offered again in 
abundance, till at last a rich supper is served, first to 

h 



146 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

the men, then to the women separately, while the 
Arabian musicians make a horrible noise which they 
call music. Towards eleven at night we got up to 
fetch the bride from her home. Torch-bearers and 
musicians accompanied the wedding procession. 
After having serenaded the bride, she is conducted 
down by the bridegroom's parents, and the procession 
forms again. The barber walks in advance with a 
cake and a jug of water, as the bride is not allowed 
to eat from her husband's table till the marriage is 
consummated. Behind the barber come the torch- 
bearers, and in the midst of them the servants with 
the wedding presents — as dresses, linen, jewellery, 
and plate. All these gifts come from near relations, 
whereas, contrary to European usage, friends need 
not make any presents. Next came the bearer of a 
large easy-chair, and preceded by yet another set of 
torch -bearers in picturesque costumes, the bride 
came at last, the matrons tottering by her side in 
dresses covered with gold lace. The guests brought 
up the rear. At some weddings it is still the custom 
that the bride on the way to her husband's house 
makes two "steps backwards after each three steps in 
advance ; this is meant to indicate how reluctantly 
she leaves her parent's house. In this case this grief 
was expressed by the procession stopping at every 
hundred yards, the bride sitting down each time on 
the easy-chair, mentioned before, resting a few min- 
utes with her face turned towards her parents' house. 
It was nearly one o'clock in the morning before we 
reached the bridegroom's house again. The moment 
the bride set foot on the threshold, amongst the 



A JEWISH WEDDING. 147 

repeated shouts of the women and during the burn- 
ing of incense, the barber again threw a jug at her 
feet, which broke into little pieces. The bridegroom 
expected her on the top of the stairs in a dressing 
gown of gold brocade, and put his foot for a 
moment on hers, as a sign that from now she is 
put under his guidance. He then led his bride to 
a kind of throne, seated on which they now both re- 
ceived renewed congratulations. And this concluded 
the festivities of the day. Before leaving the house 
we peeped into the bridal chamber, where we saw 
two four-posters splendidly furnished and hung with 
yellow silk curtains. The bride, however, is not 
allowed to enter this room on that day. 

We visited the young couple again on the next day, 
and found them in different costumes, as rich and as 
beautiful as those of the day before, and surrounded 
by young married ladies, who did the honours. There 
exists a custom that on this day all brides married 
the same year take their whole wardrobe to the newly- 
married lady and change their toilet from hour to 
hour : no easy task, considering the great number of 
their garments, and their corpulence and awkwardness. 
Nevertheless vanity overcomes the difficulty. In 
front of the bridal couple the musicians sat again 
performing on the drum and hurdy-gurdy, a treat 
they had enjoyed since early dawn. Before them on 
a table stood a basket, which the guests filled gradu- 
ally with gold and silver coin. The guests came and 
offered their congratulations and partook of refresh- 
ments consisting principally of fruits, ice, and Oriental 
liqueurs. So the married couple remained sitting till 



148 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

late at night, when, as soon as the last guest had 
departed, they retired under the guidance of the 
barber, whose most important functions now began. 
For the bride the spell was now broken, and she was 
allowed to talk again. However, the festivities were 
not yet over, but continued for a whole week. For 
instance, on the first Thursday after the marriage the 
young wife has to perform the ceremony of sacrificing 
a raw fish. The guests assemble, and the parents of 
the bride present on a tray a living fish, which the 
bride has to decapitate with one cut. There are 
many other similar customs, partly originating in 
superstition partly in habit, which we cannot mention 
here. 

The above details are sufficient to show the 
originality of the habits and customs of the North 
African Jews. All the tribes represented in Tunis 
have similar peculiar customs, but it is almost 
impossible for a Christian to be admitted to witness 
them. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT 149 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A CHAPTER ABOUT THE MANAGEMENT OF 
THE GOVERNMENT. 

We have already given a good many details about 
the machinery of the Government of Tunis which 
may have surprised our readers ; we shall attempt 
here to give an insight into the sources of revenues 
which barely keep this rotten State going. In this 
country, without newspapers and without books, infor- 
mation can only be gathered by word of mouth. The 
Bey has hitherto not allowed the publication of Euro- 
pean newspapers — and perhaps rightly so — and the 
only Arabian paper, an official paper called Rayel el 
Twtisie, contains nothing but panegyrics of the First 
Minister and his creatures, and long lists of promotions 
and appointments, and has the one object of excusing 
or contradicting deeds of violence, which the former 
barber and present Minister Mustapha ben Ismail 
commits only too often. Up to the year 1877 there 
existed a Ennuzhat-ul-Khairia, a kind of Tunisian 
Almanac de Gotka, which was printed in Italian. 
From reasons unknown this ceased to be published 
after 1877. 



ISO TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

The origin of their national debt, this most 
important innovation copied from Europe, is, to be 
found in the re-establishment of the ancient Roman 
aqueduct, which was undertaken by a French company 
with the object of providing the capital, which till then 
had only rain-water in cisterns, with fresh spring-water 
from the mountains of Zaghuan, forty English miles 
distant. They thought they had discovered so 
productive a gold mine with this first loan that a 
second and third soon followed ; this of course 
weakened their credit, and the interest had to be 
raised till it soon reached twelve per cent, which 
yearly represented such a sum that the total revenue 
of the State did not cover it. At last dire necessity 
compelled them to put their finances in order. The 
creditors most interested were in England, France, 
and Italy, and these powers arranged in 1869 that a 
financial commission should be appointed, with a 
financial inspector proposed by France, and a 
Tunisian committee named by the Bey. This com- 
mission exists to this day. It is their function to fix 
the amount of the public debt, to name all branches 
of public revenues which can be yielded to creditors ; 
finally, to collect taxes, and to prevent the further 
emission of treasury bonds, which had fallen to five per 
cent. The history of the latter is yet so fresh in the 
memory of those interested that it is scarcely necessary 
to refer to this amusing little story, which was sad 
enough for the country itself. 

Besides this financial commission a central 
committee was appointed, which the English, Italian, 
and French creditors nominated to control the 



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT. 151 



financial commission in their turn. In 1870, soon 
after the instalment of these bodies, it was found that 
the national debt amounted to 160,000,000 francs, 
the interest to 19,500,000, and the total revenue of 
the State to 13,500,000. The expenditure of 
Government, even if cut down to the lowest, never 
cost less than 6,500,000, so that it was clear the 
Government could not meet its liabilities ; this led in 
1870 to the conversion of all the loans into one 
united debt at five per cent, but notwithstanding this 
only sixty to seventy per cent were paid on the 
coupons. Most of the revenue had to be transferred 
to the Consul of Administration, who leases them 
in his turn, by auction, to the highest bidder. The 
taxes for the most important product — the oil — are 
collected by the Tunisian local authorities, but must 
also be paid into the creditors' treasury. Some of 
the revenues were given over to the Government to 
pay its expenses — for instance, head-money and 
tithes ; but neither the financial commission nor any- 
body else, with the exception of the First Minister, 
knows to how much these amount, as nothing is 
published about it. In case of a surplus it is divided 
into two halves, one for the extinction of the debt, 
the other for the Bey, who therefore often applies to 
the European commission for money. Towards the 
end of my stay in Tunis the Bey had just applied 
to the respective officials for a small sum, I believe 
1000 francs, without the strict cashier being able to 
comply with his wishes. The yearly income of 
the Bey amounts to 1,500,000 piastres, or 900,000 
francs. 



152 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

The administration of the country is in the hands 
of the Ministry and twenty -one district governors 
or Caids, who again appoint deputies or Caliphs, 
whereas they themselves remain in the capital. We 
have seen in former chapters how these high func- 
tionaries perform their duties. Only in one respect 
they show a remarkable punctuality and persever- 
ance, i.e. in the collection of taxes. 

It is incredible to what degree this poor people, 
reduced by epidemics, emigration, and starvation, 
numbering in all 1,500,000 is oppressed and drained. 
The Mamelukes at the head of the Government 
exhibited a genius for inventing new taxes which 
would have done credit to a Yankee. 

To begin with, every man in the State, from his 
seventeenth year up to the oldest age, has to pay a 
yearly head-money of 45 piastres (=27 francs); 
every farmer has to give up a tenth of his harvest ; 
an income-tax of one charoub ( = one farthing) in 
the piastre is levied on every proprietor ; a tax of 
one charoub is put on every transaction in the 
markets, etc. (with the exception of provision -mar- 
kets) ; house-rent is taxed ; leather and hides pay 
also a tax; and every olive and palm tree in the 
Regency is taxed, and these trees alone bring to the 
treasury 3,000,000 francs. The import and export 
duties are so high that they cannot afford them any 
more, which has a most pernicious influence on the 
future prosperity of the country. 

Under these circumstances it is no pleasure to be 
a Tunisian, and emigration has therefore increased 
enormously during the last few years. This is 



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT. 153 

generally directed towards Egypt and Arabia. It 
is to be hoped that the French will bring relief to 
this oppressed people, for here they have an oppor- 
tunity, as nowhere else, to do a great deal of good 
and to promote civilisation. 

The only railways, which the country has pos- 
sessed a few years, are the lines from Goletta to 
Tunis, and from Tunis along the Medcherda river 
towards the Algerian frontier, where they will join 
the railway there. The telegraphs are in the hands 
of the French Government, and the post in Tunis 
and in the principal ports of the Regency is admin- 
istered by special French and Italian post offices, 
which are placed under the authority of the respect- 
ive Consuls. 



154 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A COURT OF JUSTICE UNDER HIS HIGHNESS THE BEY. 

In none of the Oriental States bordering on 
Europe has the mediaeval administration of justice 
been preserved in the same degree as in Tunis. 
There is here as yet no such thing as the calling 
of judge, but the governor of the province or the 
commander of a place is ex officio a judge ; it is 
immaterial whether the favour of the Bey has 
brought him out of a barber's shop, or whether 
he has beaten the drum all his life, or been em- 
ployed in a bazaar. To be a judge is the highest 
aim of the whole Tunisian bureaucracy ; it not 
only puts them within reach of a large income from 
bribery, but it also saves them from falling into the 
hands of other judges ; it also gives them great 
power and influence. 

A court of five judges has been introduced into 
the Turkish provinces long ago, but the Arabs seem 
to prefer a single judge, as he has only to bribe one 
instead of five, and so the Tunisian is better in this 
respect than his neighbour in Tripolis. According 
to the Koran the office of a judge belonged to a 



A COURT OF JUSTICE. 155 

Kadi, and in religious matters to a Mufti, but the 
functions of the once almighty Kadi have been 
curtailed a good deal in Tunis. He still marries 
people, pronounces separations, and does besides 
what in Europe a registrar would do, but his func- 
tions as a judge have been taken from him by the 
Caids and the Governors of the town. 

The highest judge in the land is the Bey himself. 
If anybody is dissatisfied with the judgment of a 
Caid or of a provincial governor, he can appeal to 
the Bey ; if two parties will not submit to the one- 
sided judgment of the Caid, who may have been 
bribed, they travel to Tunis, even if they live in the 
most distant parts of the Regency, and put their case 
before the Bey. However he may judge, whether he 
is just or not, both parties are generally satisfied. 
They put the utmost confidence in the judgment of 
their ruler, and are seldom deceived. They them- 
selves do not wish for another administration of 
justice, least of all for the European one, and when 
twelve years ago, urged by the European Consuls, 
the Bey was willing to grant a constitution, and 
wished at the same time to transfer the offices 
of judges to functionaries properly trained for it, 
it was the sign for a general armed rebellion, 
which ended by the Bey's withdrawal of the constitu- 
tion and the re-establishment of the status quo ante 
bellum. 

The judicial sittings of the Bey belong to the best 
points of this country, and show at the same time of 
what contradictions the Orient is capable. During 
all his life the Bey and his doings are withdrawn 



IS6 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

from the eyes of his subjects. Thick palace walls, 
barred windows, sentries, and watchful courtiers and 
ministers make it impossible for the ordinary Moslem 
ever to behold him. And even the highest function- 
aries or European dignitaries can never be presented 
to the Bey unless the almighty Prime Minister has 
been visited first, and is present at the audience. 
But at these public sessions, which are held every 
Saturday morning in one of the Bey's palaces, he is 
accessible to even the lowest of his subjects ; every 
one may lay his desires and his difficulties before his 
sovereign, and all are thoroughly convinced that the 
Bey will do them justice as far as human wisdom and 
power enable him to do. Mohamed es Sadock 
enjoys in this respect the best reputation with the 
natives as well as with the Europeans, and all the 
sentences I have heard, or which have been reported 
to me, show a sound judgment, and even something 
of that Solomonic wisdom which distinguished Oriental 
Caliphs centuries ago. 

The first session I was present at took place in 
the palace of Goletta, where the Bey resided at the 
time. On *the way from Tunis to Goletta we met a 
great many people already on their way to the 
palace : Moors and Turks in their picturesque gar- 
ments, high dignitaries and military men in splendid 
uniforms covered with decorations ; thickly veiled 
ladies, wrapped in silk dresses, the unavoidable eunuch 
on the box of their handsome carriages ; finally, 
Bedouins and men from Barbary in their long white 
bornouses, the gun on the shoulder, a couple of 
pistols in the belt, all riding on horses or donkeys. 



A COURT OF JUSTICE. 157 

Here and there a Bedouin Sheik, or a Caid with a 
train of followers, was galloping about ; and surprised 
us all by the splendour of his dress or the beauty of 
his old Moorish arms. Goletta itself looks festive on 
these days. On the large place before the plain- 
looking palace Arabs stand about in picturesque 
groups or lie down in corners together with their 
horses or camels. They have, perhaps, come a long 
way from the interior to settle an old dispute with a 
neighbour ; on the other side are some dozens of 
tents for the Zuanwas and Spahis, the irregular 
troops of the Bey. These martial figures, with their 
gold embroidered belts, into which pistols, yataghans, 
and scimitars are thrust, stalk about like field-mar- 
shals. Besides tents and arms they call nothing 
their own ; their income depends on the First Minis- 
ter, but they look down upon the Bedouins and 
Kabyles for all that, because these latter are not 
richer, and have to pay heavy taxes into the bargain, 
whereas soldiers pay none. Inside the palace and 
on the broad staircase the crowd increases. On the 
landing-places the body-guard of the Regent is 
posted — giants in scarlet uniforms fringed with gold ; 
they carry scimitars and Saracen lances. Even the 
fez is trimmed with gold, and has instead of the blue 
silk tassel a bunch of white ostrich feathers. The 
whole household of the Bey is organised in military 
style ; upstairs in the ante -room of the judgment- 
hall aides-de-camp and courtiers stand about in rich 
uniforms, official and European dragomans hurry to 
and fro. Every entering dignitary and Minister is 
received by the subaltern in having his hands kissed, 



158 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and numbers of Arabs rush forward to show their 
reverence. 

A slight movement in the midst of the pictur- 
esquely-grouped crowd betrayed the arrival of the 
almighty " Vezier el Kebir wa Vezier el Charadshia " 
— that is to say, the Prime Minister and Minister 
of Foreign Affairs ; he arrived in a richly -gilt 
carriage, drawn by mules, and accompanied by aides- 
de-camp on horseback. In private clothes, and his 
head covered only by the fez, anybody meeting the 
Grand Vizier on the Boulevards in Paris would take 
him for a tailor or for a man-servant, so common- 
place is his appearance. But dressed in a uniform 
he improves considerably, the more so as these 
Moorish functionaries know how to make themselves 
respected and to behave like born princes however 
low their origin. I have had many an opportunity 
to notice this, not only in my intercourse with the 
Vizier, but also with other Ministers and Generals, of 
whom many were slaves or artisans in their youth. 
These Tunisian careers are as surprising and splendid 
as the American ones, only that they are not created 
by labour and genius, but by cunning, intrigue, and 
princely favour. 

Immediately after the arrival of the Minister, 
blasts of trumpets announced the approach of the 
Bey himself. His carriage was also drawn by mules, 
which are considered aristocratic in Tunis, and 
mounted aides-de-camp in uniform, descended from 
the Bey's singular court of pages, accompanied him 
too, and stopped before the high gate of the palace. 
"The servant of the glorious God, he who puts all 



A COURT OF JUSTICE. 159 

his trust in God, the Mushir Mohamed es Sadock 
Pasha Bey, possessor of the Kingdom of Tunis," 1 
stepped out of the carriage. The guards presented 
their sabres, the drummers beat the drums, and the 
whole assembly bowed most respectfully, touching 
chest, lips, and forehead with their hands, while the 
Bey ascended the stairs accompanied by the Ministers 
who had received him ; and, after staying a short 
time in one of the offices, he entered the Court. 
Here he took a seat on a gilt throne of red velvet, 
which stood on a raised dais. On his left stood the 
princes of his house, with the exception of his 
brothers, including the heir to the throne ; on his 
right, the Prime Minister and Generals placed them- 
selves, as well as the chiefs of division of the 
Ministries, and also the Secretary of State, with the 
clerks of the Court. In the background stood a 
company of the red body-guard. It was a singular, 
but magnificent sight The Bey wore a General's 
uniform — a dark-blue coat with golden buttons, red 
trousers with golden stripes, the Turkish scimitar 
with a jewelled hilt, and the red fez on his grave 
and dignified head. On his breast sparkled the 
diamond stars of his decorations. The young princes, 
his nephews, looked less respectable : all had Euro- 
pean private clothes and overcoats, with fez and blue 
tassels, and they all wore the collar of the Iftikar 
Order. 

After this motley crowd of generals, Bedouin 
chiefs, Marabouts, sheiks, guards, and officials had 

1 Official title of the Bey of Tunis. 



160 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

somewhat arranged itself, a colonel of gigantic size 
entered (he was, we heard later, the chief of the 
police) ; he stepped into the empty space Defore the 
Bey, and addressing himself to the noisy crowd in 
the ante-rooms, called out with a loud voice : " The 
Prince salutes you, and is here to render justice." 

Immediately after a European, in a dress-coat and 
white tie, came forward and offered the Bey a 
tshibuk with a tube six feet long and set in diamonds ; 
after this pipe was lit, and thin blue clouds enveloped 
the Bey like a gossamer veil, the first two litigants 
were brought forward. They remained standing 
about eight steps from the throne, bowed low, and 
touched their chest with crossed hands. First the 
one spoke, then the second defended himself, where- 
upon both broke out into such a bombast of words 
accompanied by wild gestures that it was only with 
the greatest trouble and perseverance the stout Bash- 
Chamba or colonel could stop them. The Bey 
murmured a few words, the Arabs again bowed low 
and walked away. Others came forward, the pro- 
ceedings were repeated, and during the whole time 
the clerks \#ent on scribbling with their wooden pens. 
Some couples behaved quietly, others screamed as 
if they were being roasted alive. The noise was 
always greatest when the judgment had been deliv- 
ered. They beat their arms about, wanted to throw 
themselves before the Bey's feet, and it was with 
difficulty that the zaptiehs could remove them. As 
this want of respect and rebellious conduct astonished 
us very much we asked our dragoman for an 
explanation. He smiled, and said : " You don't 



A COURT OF JUSTICE. 161 

understand these good people, what they say are 
only exclamations of thanks and praise for the Bey's 
greatness and justice, in which both the accuser and 
the convicted one join." 

Soldiers who brought their cases before the Bey 
weic allowed to approach the throne within four 
steps ; and though they also touched their chest, 
lips, and forehead, they did not bow. It also sur- 
prised us when the same soldier re-entered four 
times running. We supposed him to be a great 
criminal, as he had to appear so many times at a 
single sitting, and asked this time the Minister of 
War what this manvais sujet had done. But we 
were told that we were mistaken, and that it was 
only the sergeant who had to bring in the soldiers 
about to be judged. The same man had done this 
for the last fourteen years. We had wronged, there- 
fore, this good man. 

Only one woman was brought before the Bey. 
She was thickly veiled, and had to stand very far from 
the throne, having been brought in by policemen. 
But she did not manifest much fear before her 
sovereign, to judge by her loud talking and scream- 
ing. I have never seen another woman at these 
sittings, for they are only allowed to appear if they are 
directly implicated. Even as spectators, European 
ladies have been refused admittance. 

The sentences delivered by the Bey consisted 
partly of fines, partly of punishment by imprisonment, 
and partly of the bastinado, for which, in Tunis, 
they have a special predilection. Some complicated 
cases were forwarded to the officials for further 

M 



1 62 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

inquiry ; in other cases, the Bey asked the Prime 
Minister by his side for details ; and the parties in 
question, therefore, try long before the day of the 
sitting to put themselves in communication with the 
avaricious Vizier, and to get him on their respective 
side by bribes and flattery. But, generally speaking 
the judgment of the Bey was clear and sound. The 
last case heard was a murder committed by Bedouins 
— father and son. The two criminals were brought 
in with their hands tied. The Bash-Chamba acted 
as prosecutor ; the murderers pleaded guilty. The 
Bey emitted thick clouds from his tshibuk, hesi- 
tated a long time, till at last he lifted his right 
hand slowly, with the palm downwards. Suddenly 
he turned it upwards, and this meant sentence of 
death. Without a word being said, the murderers 
were taken away by the zaptiehs. The Bey, evidently 
moved and restless, rose from the throne, the tshibuk 
was taken from him, and after bowing majestically 
in all directions, he walked slowly to his private 
apartments, followed by his Ministers. The Bash- 
Chamba had before this called to the crowd in a 
loud and drawling voice, the word, " El Afia !" 
(peace), whereupon everybody went slowly and 
quietly away. The sitting was over. 

Meanwhile our dragoman beckorfed to us to come 
and stand at a window. "If you wait here," he said, 
"you can see the execution at once." Scarcely two 
hundred yards from the palace, near to the shore, of 
the El Bahireh Lake, we saw a high gallows, consist- 
ing of two posts and a cross-beam. Two ropes hung 
from the latter. The two criminals were taken into 



A COURT OF JUSTICE. 163 

one of the tents of the irregular guards, and there 
undressed. Here they were allowed to say their 
prayers and to undertake the prescribed ablutions. 
Soon after we saw them walk to the gallows, followed 
by the executioner, dressed in scarlet, and by several 
policemen. Here the hangman took off all their 
clothes except a cloth round their loins, put a cord 
round their necks, and made a sign to their servants 
standing at the other end of the cord. These now 
dragged the two murderers four or five feet above 
the ground, and tied the cords to some pegs. The 
dangling about and the twitching, lasting several 
minutes, was horrible, and we were glad to get away. 
There was no military escort, and the two or three 
hundred Arabs who had followed the procession soon 
dispersed. After an hour the corpses were cut down, 
and galley slaves, chained together in couples, put 
them on a high bier and took them to the burial- 
place. Half an hour later the gallows had disap- 
peared, the dead were buried, and all was over. 

Though the mode of execution itself is more 
dreadful here than in Europe, the condemned have 
one advantage over their European colleagues — 
they are not exposed to the pangs of conscience and 
to the apprehension of death for days. Sentence of 
death is a very rare occurrence in Tunis, as the Bey, 
unlike his predecessors, is very loath to pronounce it. 
When he is compelled to do so, he spends the day 
in prayer, and is wholly inaccessible. Unfortunately, 
the Tunisian laws make no difference between man- 
slaughter, perhaps committed under the influence of 



1 64 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

drink, and premeditated murder. Both are expiated 
by death, but only if the relations of the victim 
refuse to accept a sum of money as compensation. 
In the provinces, where such murders amongst the 
Bedouins are rather frequent, the murderer is put 
into the " Kottar," or he flies to a sacred and inviol- 
able asylum, which are generally to be found near 
the graves of holy Marabouts. There the relations 
of the murdered treat with those of the murderer, 
and are often satisfied with a compensation of a few 
hundred piastres. An ancient law, dating from 
heathen times, fixes the sum with the Kabyles and 
Chumairs at 600 to 800 piastres, which has to be 
paid by the murderer to the community — that is to 
say, to the head of their tribe. At the same time, 
his place of abode is destroyed, his goods confiscated, 
and he himself driven away. But with this the law 
has been satisfied only, not the family of the mur- 
dered one. In Barbary they carry out Corsican 
revenge, and only the death of the murderer or of 
one of his family will satisfy the family of the 
murdered. And these laws are so strict that, if 
there is no« man in the family, the wife of the 
murdered man, for instance, would make a bargain 
with another man, and even marry him, if necessary, 
to have the murder of her husband revenged. 

In Tunis the Bey alone has the right to pro- 
nounce sentence of death. The mode of execution 
depends on the nationality of the condemned. The 
Turks possess to this day certain privileges dating 
from their power in former days ; they and their 
children, descended from Moorish mothers, the 



A COURT OF JUSTICE. 165 

Kuluglis, are strangled by a silk rope dipped in 
soap -water ; the Moors are decapitated, and the 
nomadising Bedouins are hanged, while the Jews, 
who formerly were drowned, also enjoy now the 
doubtful privilege of being hanged. 

As the Bey of Tunis changes his residence very 
often, and lives sometimes in one palace and some- 
times in another, a court of justice exists in each. 
But there is one exception. In Hammam-en-Linf, 
a watering-place a few miles from Tunis, there is no 
room large enough to allow of a public court, so a 
large tent is built on the downs along the sea-shore, 
and here the Bey sits in judgment every Saturday. 
The downs, usually deserted, unfold on these days a 
very lively and bustling scene. Not only do the 
Moors, the Court, and citizens come to Hammam in 
carriages, and mounted on camel and horse back, 
but the Arabs come from all parts of the country, 
and for them tents have to be erected, which are 
grouped picturesquely round the large tent of the 
Bey. The numerous caravans, the animals for 
riding, the encampment with primitive kitchen 
apparatus, the many singular forms moving to and 
fro, all show us the Orient in its true character. 

A strange incident occurred some years ago 
during one of these judicial sittings. A Moor 
approached the throne silently holding a large sack 
in his hand, out of which rolled two human heads 
bleeding, one a man's, the other a woman's. The 
Bey looked first at the heads, then at the Moor, and 
without saying a word made the sign which meant 



1 66 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

acquittal. It was simply a husband who had dis- 
covered his wife was deceiving him. In his excitement 
he made use of his ancient traditional right to kill her 
and her lover, and presented himself the very same 
day before the Bey to confess his deed, not in words, 
but more significantly by showing the heads of the 
transgressors. The Bey had to respect the old tradi- 
tions, and acquitted him. Since then no such case 
has happened. Not because Moorish women are 
more virtuous, but because deceived husbands prefer, 
supported by the law, to sell their wives to their 
seducers, and thereby gain two ends — get rid of a 
bad wife, and in return get a good sum of money. 



ADMINISTRA TION OF JUSTICE. 167 



CHAPTER XV. 

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE AND THE STATE OF 
PRISONS IN CAPITAL AND PROVINCE. 

Next to the Bey the Caids and provincial governors 
have the highest judicial power. On account of the 
large bribes offered to judges these functions are 
very profitable, and for that reason the Bey and the 
Prime Minister generally give them to their favour- 
ites, who usually fill another office at Court as well. 
They live in the capital, visit their provinces very 
rarely or never, and are represented by Vice-Caids 
or " Chalifs." These judge arbitrarily, but have to 
deliver to their chiefs part of the bribes, which sums 
have therefore to be twice as large as if the Caid 
delivered judgment himself. Those, then, who wish 
to make use of a judge's wisdom prefer to travel to 
Tunis and apply to the Caid directly instead of 
having anything to do with the Caliph. If it is 
kept in mind that some provinces like Susa or Sfax 
are two days' journey from Tunis, an idea can be 
formed of the discomfort of this administration of 
justice. In Susa and Sfax the Caids are two Syrians, 
who in their youth were slaves, and who, partly 



1 68 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

through their own skill, partly through the favour of 
princes and ministers, rose to be directors of the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These places alone 
bring in large sums of money. If their salaries as 
provincial governors are added, and their bribes as 
judges, it is not to be wondered at that they are 
millionaires. It is carried even so far that the 
Prime Minister Mustapha ben Ismail not only limits 
the Caids to the sums they rob, and pockets their 
salaries, but he sells the office of Caid to the highest 
bidder. This happened only last year with the Caid 
of Mater. 

The farther the province from the capital, the 
mightier and more independent is the Caid, and he 
is more of a reigning despot than a provincial 
governor. The capital of Tunis forms a district by 
itself, and as a rule the governor is a military man 
of high rank, as is the case just now. Through the 
immediate neighbourhood of the Court and Ministers, 
his power and sense of justice is often influenced to 
their advantage, but in police courts and insignificant 
cases he generally passes appropriate judgments. 

The " Ferik " or governor of the town sits daily in 
a small hall of the Dar-el-Bey of Tunis during two 
or three hours to judge the misdemeanours of the 
day, and to investigate heavy crimes, and has after- 
wards to lay the resumi before the Bey. The whole 
proceeding is as unsophisticated as if this capital of 
the Regency of Tunis were in the interior of Persia 
or Mesopotamia. The Ferik is dressed like a 
general, but without arms, and sits with crossed legs 
on a divan running the whole length of the room. 



ADMINISTRA TION OF JUSTICE. 169 

He is one of the best-known personages in Tunis. 
In his youth he was famous for his enormous strength, 
and it is said of him that he overpowered a large 
panther by the strength of his arms alone without 
any weapon whatever. To-day he is old and decre- 
pit, and while the sitting lasted he sat motionless on 
the divan. The room opens into a large glass - 
covered yard, where the executions take place before 
the Ferik. If, for instance, a criminal is arrested in 
the afternoon, he has first to undergo an examination 
before a police functionary, who is the adjutant of 
the Ferik. He is afterwards taken to prison, which 
is also in Dar-el-Bey below the court. Now it must 
not be imagined that Tunisian prisoners are treated 
anything like European ones. The prisoners are all 
put together into one and the same dungeon-like 
hole, and do not leave it again till they are either 
taken before the judge or liberated. They are not 
allowed to leave this room under any circumstances, 
so the state of it may be imagined. In this prison 
there are neither beds nor wooden planks, so that 
the prisoners must eat and sleep on the damp floor. 
They receive from the Government daily a loaf of 
bread and fresh water ; other food and clothes they 
may obtain from their relations, with whom they 
can communicate through the large iron bars of the 
prison walls. The women are housed in a different 
place, but are treated in the same way as the men. 

In these prisons they remain till taken before the 
Ferik, who decides their cases. I have several times 
witnessed this simple proceeding. A couple of 
zaptiehs or policemen bring the prisoners in ; the 



170 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

" police-colonel " reads the accusation from a little 
bit of paper, for business books of any kind are 
unknown in the Orient ; the Ferik asks the accused 
several questions, listens to his defence, and convicts 
him, sentencing him to prison, fine, or bastinado, 
according to the state of his finances. Great crimi- 
nals are sent to the galleys. 

Next to fines the bastinado is the most frequent 
punishment, and a criminal gets rarely less than one 
or two hundred strokes. Even five to eight hun- 
dred are nothing extraordinary. As soon as the 
Ferik has pronounced the number of strokes, police- 
men rush forward and drag the prisoner into the 
yard. Here he is thrown down and bound. Two 
zaptiehs put his naked feet through the noose of a 
cord fastened in the wall, and tighten it to such a 
degree that his feet stand up almost perpendicular 
and show his soles. Two sergeants now come 
forward with cudgels and belabour the soles in a 
most cruel manner until the number of strokes is 
reached. Then the poor fellow is untied and set 
free. Those who had received five hundred and 
more strokes generally bled very much, and had to 
be carried away by their friends, of whom some are 
always amongst the spectators. But what surprised 
me was to see some of those who had received one 
or two hundred strokes limp away quickly, with a 
sour face it is true, but apparently not much hurt 
But the reason of this was explained to me after- 
wards by my dragoman. The bastinado is one of 
the policeman's most prolific sources of income ; his 
pay by the Government being only nominal, he has 



ADMINISTRA TION OF JUSTICE. 171 

to get what he can by bribery. As soon as anybody 
is sentenced to be bastinadoed, his first step is to 
treat with the police about the sum to be paid for 
lenient treatment. The bargain is settled before 
the first stroke falls, and this explained the fact 
why the one who probably was poor remained 
helpless on the floor after the punishment, whereas 
the other, perhaps richer, seemed to walk off with 
little discomfort. 

When the sentence is executed, other prisoners 
are brought forward, and the whole proceeding is 
carried on with the utmost precision and quick- 
ness. One case which came under my observation 
is too characteristic not to find a place here. One 
evening I accompanied Mr. Smith, an English friend, 
home to his house on the " Marina," where I took 
leave of him. I had scarcely left him when I heard 
a tumbling noise, followed by two shots, coming 
from the house. Immediately after two Arabs 
rushed out of it and ran away. One was gone in a 
minute, but the other fell down after a few steps 
and remained motionless. As I went back to ask 
the cause of all this, Smith came out of his house, 
excited, and the smoking revolver in his hand. He 
had caught the two, who had entered his house by 
the flat roof, in the act of carrying away some valu- 
able property of his. On Smith entering one rushed 
at him with a yataghan, but Smith anticipated him 
by two well-aimed shots from his revolver. We 
hastened to the guard-house to report what had hap- 
pened. And there it ended for the moment. Some 
days later I attended the court again at which the 



172 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Ferik presided. After having witnessed some con- 
victions, I noticed an agitation amongst the people 
standing in the yard, and a policeman making his 
way through the crowd, carrying a wounded man on 
his back. Arrived before the Ferik, he dropped his 
load on the stony floor before him. I recognised in 
the wounded man the Arab who had broken into 
Smith's house. As the law demands that every 
prisoner must be examined personally, and as the 
Ferik either would or could not go to the hospital, 
they simply took the prisoner on their shoulders and 
carried him to the court to hear his sentence, though 
he had two bullets in his body. The man was 
severely wounded and unconscious. 

The galleys of Tunis are particularly severe. 
The Bey is probably the only prince whose galley- 
slaves are part of his suite If the Bey resides in 
Goletta, the prisoners are taken there ; if he moves 
to the Bardo, they are moved to the Bardo too. 
The reason is, that they are employed to do the 
hard work in houses and streets, so that they must 
be near when repairs are necessary in or around the 
palace. The same is the case with the Ministers 
and favourites, who make use of the galley-slaves 
when their private houses want repairing, or when 
pavements want looking to, or for any other such 
purpose ; but the prisoners are always chained to- 
gether in couples. 

But the galley-slaves are not the worst off, for they 
at least know their fate. Provided with my " firman," 
which opens every door, I one day, in company with 



ADMINISTRA TION OF JUSTICE. 1 73 

two German officers, visited the prison in the Bardo. 
Energetic and repeated threats were necessary to 
induce the jailer to allow us to enter, and even then 
he only opened the door sufficiently to let us and our 
dragoman pass. Behind us the door was immediately 
bolted, and we found ourselves in a large space with 
two or three hundred prisoners. This jail had some 
wooden planks, on which some of the prisoners were 
lying. Others crouched on the floor, and jumped up 
when we entered to approach us. We heard from 
them that they were all prisoners awaiting their trial ; 
some had been here these three years, and seemed to 
have been forgotten by the authorities. They receive 
daily two small loaves and water. In one respect 
they are better off than European prisoners : their 
friends and relations may visit them at all times. 
The cause of this is not so much to be sought in 
humanity as in the gratuities the friends have to pay 
the jailer, and in the provisions which they bring to 
the prisoners, which saves the Government providing 
for them. Many a one languishes here who was in 
the way of some one in power, and could not be got 
rid of by any other means. The Bey has evidently no 
knowledge of this state of affairs, or with his well- 
known sense of justice he would have abolished it 
long ago ; but in this country, without a press, the 
Ministers manage very well to hide their evil deeds 
before the eyes of the ruler. 

But this judicial arbitrariness is more cruel still in 
the country. In provincial towns the prisons are 
perfect pest-houses, and the turnkey of the jail in 
Mater, for instance, told me himself that the prisoners 



r74 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

are kept alive by their relations, and, when they have 
none, by the alms of the passers-by, of whom they 
beg in a truly heartrending way. During the day I 
used to see them at the barred windows of the prison 
waiting till somebody handed them a piece of bread 
or a drink of water. If the relations of the prisoners 
can get together a sum of money, they can buy them 
off, and this money the Caid of Chalif squanders with 
his dancing girls and harem boys. During my stay 
in Mater I had the opportunity to get an insight into 
the behaviour of these vampires. I lived on the farm 
of a European whose head shepherd came to me 
crying one day, and asked me to help his brother-in- 
law. This latter had been imprisoned by the Chalifa 
of the town, because some men who were his enemies 
accused him of having committed murder. The family 
of the murdered man wanted 500 piastres compensa- 
tion, and the Chalifa 500 more. Though the man 
could prove an alibi, the " shaush " or beadle had ar- 
rested him, and the payment of the money was insisted 
upon. The whole town was convinced of the man's 
innocence, but under such lawless and despotic sway 
nobody dared to raise a voice for him. I promised 
to do my utmost. A day or two after I had com- 
municated with the First Minister, through the Bey's 
second dragoman, the Chalifa was cited to Tunis, the 
prisoner was at once liberated, and the Chalifa 
sentenced to pay to the Minister a fine of several 
thousand piastres. But as soon as the Chalifa had 
returned to Mater, he extorted from his subalterns an 
extraordinary contribution under pretence of having 
to send it to the Minister. A part he kept for himself, 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 175 

the rest he sent to the Minister, and the sufferer was 
again — the people. 

Under these circumstances, every inhabitant of the 
Regency tries, of course, with all the means in his 
power to renounce Tunisian jurisdiction, and to put 
himself, under some pretence, under the protection of 
a foreign Consulate. The Tunisian authorities have 
no power whatever over Europeans, or those protected 
by foreign Consulates ; and the respective Consuls 
try all their misdemeanours and crimes, as well as 
those of the other colonists. More important Con- 
sulates, like the Italian one and the French, have 
amongst their officials their own magistrates, who 
judge according to the laws of their respective 
countries ; the other Consuls are most of them 
lawyers themselves. To get rid of Tunisian justice 
these Mohammedans prove a real or imaginary 
descent from Europeans ; in most cases the Spanish 
Moors have to serve as ancestors, and the Spanish 
Consulate has to undertake the protection. What 
documents could not do money had to accomplish, 
and so the lists of every single Consulate show many 
hundred Mohammedan subjects who are genuine 
Tunisians, but do not wish to be either judged or 
taxed by their own Government. As a rule, they 
are the richest people in the Regency, and have to 
fear most from the ministerial harpies. This accom- 
modation on the part of the Consuls deprives the 
Ministers of their best sources of income, but it also 
deprives the State of ratepayers, so that the deficiency 
has again to be made up by the poorer part of the 
population. And the power of the Consuls is very 



176 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

great in other respects. They are masters and pro- 
tectors of several thousands of subjects, and besides 
this, territorial rights and privileges are attached to 
their houses, their landed properties, and to those of 
their " subjects," so that they quite form a State within 
the State. That some of these gentlemen not very 
long ago imitated the Tunisian authorities, and did not 
object to show themselves obliging for a consideration, 
is neither here nor there, for at present we only speak 
of Mohammedan administration of justice. Moreover, 
there is no doubt that this state of affairs is fast 
disappearing, and there is even less doubt that, with 
the French occupation, Tunisian administration wil 
take a turn for the better. 



THE ENVIRONS OF TUNIS. 177 



CHAPTER XVI. 

WANDERINGS IN THE ENVIRONS OF TUNIS. 

There is no tree to be seen in the capital of the old 
Moorish empire. A small square near the " Kasba," 
and a few single palm-trees excepted, which reach 
over the roofs of the houses, there is no refreshing 
green to be found within its walls, and it is incom- 
prehensible how the Arabs could call this " the Green 
Town." The " dirty " or " dark " would have been 
much more appropriate. 

But this deficiency is partly made up by the 
surroundings of the town. Though there is neither 
bush nor tree in the immediate neighbourhood of 
Tunis, there are roads like the one leading to the 
Bardo, planted with shady acacias, and after a walk 
of half an hour we reach extensive olive woods 
covering all the hills south of the town. Shady 
resting-places, beautiful views, the two lakes, and the 
distant picturesque outlines of Dshebel Bu Kornein, 
Dshebel Ressas, and Dshebel Zaghuan are well worth 
a visit; but it has never entered the head of anybody 
in this country without enterprise to erect a restau- 
rant, or at least an Arabian cafe, and so create a 

N 



178 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

resting-place for the 30,000 Europeans of Tunis in 
their walks. 

I often rode up to these olive woods in good and 
pleasant company, and I do not remember a single 
view in the whole East which offered a more delight- 
ful picture. But this can only be said of the total 




ARABIAN CEMETERY. 



impression, for in its details the neighbourhood of 
Tunis is rather desolate. The bare, yellowish green 
hills immediately outside the walls of the town are 
covered with forts and batteries. If you leave the 
gates guarded by sentries for the open country, you 
are in the midst of graves ; and except in the 
European quarter, there is not a single building 



THE ENVIRONS OF TUNIS. 179 



outside the town ; all the ground for many hundred 
yards round being covered with tombstones and 
mortuary chapels, a sad and dispiriting spectacle. 
The walls are in ruins, the roads covered with 
fragments of stone, and the tombstones overgrown 
with thistles and weeds. The only change in this 
wilderness are the " Kubbas " of the saints, cubical 
buildings crowned by cupolas. The 10,000 graves 
are all alike : a stone slab, six feet long and about 
one foot high, with either a tablet at the head, or a 
small stone column topped by a turban -like knob, 
according to the sex of the dead. The corpse is 
laid in a coffin, and at the funeral covered with costly 
materials ; but, on arrival at the cemetery, it is taken 
out again, covered with a light garment only, and 
put in a very shallow grave. It is, of course, not 
allowed to bury non-believers there. 

The family of the Bey possess, in the upper part 
of the town, their own mosque, which is their 
mausoleum, and in which all the rulers of the 
Hussein dynasty are buried to the present day. 

There is generally before the gates of the town a 
large place, with fountains of stone, where the cara- 
vans and Bedouin tribes encamp before entering the 
town. For after sunset the gates are locked, and 
only by order of the Bey can they be opened at 
night, in case a distinguished traveller or Turkish 
dignitary arrives. 

The lake of El Bahireh, which reaches up to the 
streets of Tunis, and is too shallow to swim and too 
deep to wade through, is the favourite abode of 



i8o TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

myriads of flamingoes, pelicans, and other water-birds 
looking for food on its marshy shores, and finding 
more than they want. All dirt and refuse of this large 
town is thrown into the Bahireh, which is therefore 
quite marshy, and exhales during summer miasms 
which get worse from year to year. Towards 
Goletta and the open gulf it gets deeper and clearer. 
It would be easy to deepen the lake and to make 
the marshy little harbour on the Marina accessible 
to larger ships, but even the small sailing vessels 
going between Goletta and Tunis have a difficulty 
now to work their way through the swamp, and most 
of the traffic is carried on by rail. The small boats 
of the European sportsmen only traverse the surface 
in great numbers to hunt the marsh birds. In the 
midst of this lake is a little island, rarely noted on 
maps, with the ruins of an old Spanish castle ; the 
high tower, the crenellated walls, the strong case- 
mates are still of use, and the French will no doubt 
one day, when Tunis is directly connected with 
the sea and this lake serves as a harbour for large 
merchantmen, bring back this old castle to its 
former destination. 

Farther north-east, across the groups of houses of 
Goletta, stands a hill bare and red, without bush or 
tree, only crowned by a small group of buildings. 
It is the place where once Carthage stood ! To 
describe here the scanty remains of the thrice- 
destroyed city is superfluous, having been done so 
often before by pens more competent than mine. 
But I may be allowed to mention that, to all appear- 
ance, they have been better described than excavated, 



THE ENVIRONS OF TUNIS. 



181 




and there seems 
a large field left 
to the archaeolo- 
gist. During the 
last years Europe 
has occupied itself 
only with Asia 
Minor, Greece, 
and Egypt, and 
the discoveries 
g" there have made 
a them forget the 
% old Roman towns 
fe buried in ruins. 
° Three towns lie 
d in Carthage on 
g the top of each 
< other, one Byzan- 
a tine, one Roman, 
h and one Punic, 
° and if Punic re- 
S mains were found 
rt they were only 
those, no doubt, 
which were used 
by the Romans 
when they built 
their town — for 
there have been 
no excavations 
until now which 
ever reached the 



182 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

centre of the extensive hill apparently consisting 
of similar rubbish to the top. 

Down there the town of Hamilkar has to be 
looked for, not above ground ; and down there discov- 
eries would probably be made which would surpass 
in importance all former ones on classical soil. It 
has not been tried till now, for Beul6, Davis, and 
other investigators have only scraped the surface, 
and yet they made discoveries rich and valuable. 
Much remains hidden under these ruins of thousands 
of years ! 

The ruins of Carthage visible to-day are not 
visited by the traveller on account of their size and 
beauty, which they do not possess, but because of 
the memories of historical events of which these 
ruins were the theatre — just as, when standing 
before the monument of a great statesman or poet 
you think first of him for whom it was erected. 

All that remains are some baths with gigantic 
vaults, in which to-day cattle are grazing, and the 
enormous pillars of the Carthaginian aqueduct, next 
to which the Arabs build their miserable huts of 
clay. More interesting is the mausoleum of the 
Saint Lewis of France, guarded by learned monks, 
and the small archaeological museum which was 
founded in the course of time. 

From the cape, crowned by a lighthouse, a 
magnificent view is enjoyed of the whole gulf and 
peninsula, of which the cape is the farthest point. 
On the steep side of the hill towards the north, 
occupied by the picturesque Arab village Sidi bu 



THE ENVIRONS OF TUNIS. 183 

Said, many of the Mohammedan dignitaries of Tunis 
have their secluded, elegant country seats. The 
inhabitants of Sidi bu Said have the reputation of 
being great fanatics, which is perhaps due to the 
Sheik ul Islam of Tunis who lives there, and to the 
mosque in which the famous saint is buried, after 
whom the village is named. 

At the foot of this village expands a beautiful 
valley covered by gardens and palm groves, formerly 
the suburb Megara of Carthage, where the wealthy 
Tunisians have built their magnificent palaces. 
Ariane and Parsa are, however, the most coveted 
spots, where the Princes and high dignitaries have 
their country seats, as well as the European Consuls, 
who owe their charming villas to the munificence of 
the Regent. The most beautiful and imposing 
structure is the palace of the heir-apparent Sidi AH 
Bey. It is surrounded by large magnificent gardens 
and orange groves, which extend down to the sea- 
shore, and contain the bathing establishment of the 
harem. Farther on, more inland, in the neighbour- 
hood of the Bardo, is Manouba. Here, in the midst 
of this fabulous splendour of the Moorish grandees, 
the traveller finds his dreams of the East realised 



1 84 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE QUARTER OF THE FRANKS AND THE 
EUROPEAN COLONIES. 

Before the eastern gate of the town, the so-called 
sea-gate, is the European quarter, which, though only 
consisting of a few streets, is the most beautiful and 
most pleasant part of this old, dingy town. From the 
gate mentioned above, a broad and imposing street 
extends to the shores of the El Bahireh lake and the 
harbour. Fine, stately mansions, most of them built 
during the last few years, form this street, called the 
" Marina," which almost reaches to the lake. This 
street contains European bazaars, large houses of 
business, hotefs, the offices of the French Telegraph, 
the tobacco manufactory, the Consulate with its large 
gardens, the European casino, and finally the cafes 
most frequented in the town, and it is ornamented 
with some shady groups of trees besides, and contains 
some public coffee gardens. On both sides smaller 
streets run into the Marina, also lined with beautiful 
buildings, and this latter ends in the Piazza Marina, 
the real centre of the European quarter. In the street 
running south are the Swedish, German, Austrian, and 



THE QUARTER OF THE FRANKS. 185 

Spanish Consulates, as well as the shipping agents 
and bank houses ; while the street north of the Piazza 
Marina contains the palace of the English Consul and 
many European business houses, and also the dwell- 
ings of the Italians and Maltese. Towards the west 
a third street lies between this place and the inner 
town, and there the Roman Catholic Church as well 
as a convent and the residence of the bishop are 
situated. Of all confessions, not Mohammedan, the 
Catholics have alone obtained the right to live within 
the walls of the Moorish town ; Jews and Protestants 
are obliged to have their temples and churches as 
well as their cemeteries outside. 

The Piazza Marina is also the liveliest part of the 
whole town. Early in the morning camel caravans 
and troops of Bedouins move through the gate, and 
pass the Tunisian guard-house to reach the bazaars of 
the inner town ; a little later business people assemble 
to hear the news of the day in the different coffee- 
houses, and to read the despatches of the "Agence 
Havas " posted up here, and finally to hold a sort of 
exchange, for which no place is more appropriate. 
Moors and Bedouins are mixed with Europeans of all 
nations ; the " Kawasses " of the Consulates in 
gorgeous uniforms, the soldiers of the Tunisian army, 
the Jews, Cretes, and Albanians in their picturesque 
costumes, all form so rich and brilliant a mart of 
nations as is not to be found elsewhere. Towards 
noon the different groups disperse, and when the 
sentries are relieved the place is empty. But in the 
afternoon life returns, grander but calmer, outside the 
gate. The Marina is the Corso of Tunis, just as the 



i86 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Riviera di Chiaja is of Naples, or to keep to the East, 
as the Shubra Avenue is at Cairo. The cafes are 
the first to fill, as the heat is still oppressive ; 
everybody tries to find a place under the fine trees of 
the French Consulate, and drinks the excellent mocha 
served here at only three sous per cup ; a cigarette 
of Tunisian tobacco heightens the enjoyment of the 
"siesta." Under the shady sycamores here all 
foreigners generally meet, and I think with pleasure 
of the pleasant hours spent here in the company of 
German friends. Arabs, Jews, Maltese, the highest 
and the lowest classes, sit here with thoroughly 
Oriental calmness under the same tree, and let the 
motley throng of promenaders pass them. Towards 
sunset the crowd gets denser, and then the carriages 
of the fashionable world appear with beautiful ladies, 
who show that a Southern sun has ripened them. The 
saluting, smiling, and flirting which takes place now 
reminds us more of the Corso in an Italian town than 
of the East without women. The European world in 
Tunis being very small, all know each other ; they 
meet in concerts and in theatres, at receptions and in 
the street, and though coteries, gossip, and enmities 
are more rife in Tunis than anywhere else, there is a 
very general outward show of politeness and amia- 
bility. To the uninitiated social life in Tunis may 
appear amusing and attractive, the more so on account 
of the kindness, almost friendship, exhibited towards 
strangers, and learned from the hospitable Orientals. 
But the more we learn to look behind the scenes the 
more the illusions disappear to which we may have 
yielded during the first weeks. 



THE QUARTER OF THE FRANKS. 187 

The Europeans who live in Tunis can only claim 
to be Europeans up to a certain degree, and the 
strange customs and bad habits here exercise their 
influence all the more as good education and firmness 
of character melt like wax under the enervating sun 
of Africa. In dress and general appearance they 
remain true to their origin ; this is already less the 
case in their manners and social intercourse, but in 
their home life they imitate the Orientals only too 
much. Though to all appearance Mohammedans are 
separated from Christians by an unsurmountable 
barrier, it would be astonishing to hear the peculiarities 
of the Tunisians of European descent, if this were the 
place to speak about them. Maltzan's archaeological 
work on Tunis contains an interesting chapter on this 
subject, and as the famous Orientalist has lived a long 
time in the Moorish town, his views, though very 
sharp, must be accepted as true. He says much of 
the dishonesty of the merchants and business people, 
of the ridiculous mania for titles and decorations in 
society and amongst the Consuls, and of the corrupti- 
bility and bribery to be found amongst some of them. 

I think it better to pass this matter over without 
further remark, many as have been the observations 
made about it by travellers. 

Perhaps the reader will be surprised to see the 
words theatre and concert in the above lines. There 
is indeed in Tunis a Philharmonic Society which gives 
concerts, and counts principally the Italian element 
amongst its members. There is an Italian opera, as 
well, performed in the tiniest house I have ever seen 
during all my travels. But they are not deterred by 



188 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

that from performing grand operas. The chorus, 
whether it has to represent an army or a popular 
assembly, consists invariably of five gentlemen and 
four ladies, because of the want of space. The 
performances are not exactly on a level with Covent 
Garden, but having nothing better, the ten or twelve 
boxes and thirty stalls are always taken — in fact, it is 
bon ton to possess, besides carriage and riding horses, 
a box in this miniature theatre. It struck me as very 
strange when once on entering this temple of art, I 
saw the prima donna in her stage costume at the 
entrance with a plate in her hand. On the plate were 
several gold and silver pieces, the most unequivocal 
intimation to the visitors, for it was the prima donna's 
benefit that night. 

At the theatre, and when the concerts take place, 
the traveller has the best opportunity of admiring the 
European ladies of Tunis. They well deserve their 
reputation for beauty, which their tasteful toilet 
enhances. Interesting faces, exuberant hair, glorious 
dark eyes, and beautiful forms — these latter unfor- 
tunately assuming ugly proportions in riper years — 
are to be found very generally. 

The most numerous and also the most important 
colony, not only in the capital, but also throughout 
all the towns along the shore, is the Italian one. In 
their hands rests the greatest part of commerce, and 
in the society of the capital they are the favourites. 
They have well-administered schools, a hospital, a 
church, convent, post office, and other institutions, 
which in more than one respect are of use to the 
other colonies. The number of Italians living in the 



THE QUARTER OF THE FRANKS. 189 

Regency is estimated at 30,000 ; next to them rank 
the English with from 15,000 to 20,000, but only 
about 200 amongst these are really Englishmen, the 
rest are Maltese, who in their language and habits 
show much likeness with the Arabians, with whom 
they are on very good terms. The French colony 
and the Greek one are about equally numerous, the 
former being of course at the head of all in respect of 
influence. The events of this year have proved this 
sufficiently, and the newspapers have said so much 
about the French Consul and his work that it is 
superfluous to say more about him and his officials. 

As I have said before, the position of Europeans 
in Tunis is a very favourable one. They are under 
the jurisdiction of their own Consuls, and this 
jurisdiction is handled in a very lenient manner. 
The representatives of the three largest colonies have 
their own magistrates ; but the other Consuls are 
diplomats, arbitrator, judge, and jailer, all in one 
person. During my stay in Tunis a murder was 
committed by a subject of a European power. What 
was to be done with the fellow ? Sentence him to 
death ? There was no hangman. Lock him up ? 
This Consulate contained no prison. The Consul had 
to ask his Government for instructions. As there was 
no communication by sea between that power and 
Tunis, the criminal would have had, in case of 
extradition, to be sent by an Italian vessel, at great 
cost, to the next harbour, and from there home by 
railway. Under these circumstances, and with the 
existing system of gratuities, it can be easily under* 
stood that matters are often winked at. 



190 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE HARBOUR AND WATERING-PLACE OF GOLETTA. 

It was scarcely to be supposed that here, in Africa, 
one of the most modern of European institutions 
was to be found. It might be expected in Algiers, 
where a quarter of a million of colonists are settled ; 
but to find here in orthodox mediaeval Tunis a 
much-frequented watering-place is almost a miracle. 
And Goletta is not only a watering-place and a 
favourite lounge of Moorish grandees, but it is 
also the harbour of the capital, where hundreds of 
ships arrive yearly. It is beautifully situated, and 
has gradually developed into a flourishing town — 
half of tha inhabitants are Europeans, the other 
half being composed of native elements. Here is 
the seat of the Ministry of Marine, of the arsenal, 
and of the fleet of Tunis, all of which we have 
treated in a former chapter. Goletta is a thorough 
harbour town, with Italian and Maltese business 
houses, common dancing -booths, and inns. A 
majestic fort to the west separates the town from 
the fashionable part ; and the black iron cannons 
look threateningly towards the town, as if they were 



THE HARBOUR OF GOLETTA. 191 

eunuchs watching the ladies of the harems bathing in 
the sea. 

From the fort a low, narrow strip of land, not 
much higher than a sand-bank, stretches northwards 
as far as Carthage, whose ruins cover several English 
square miles. The bay is surrounded by exceedingly 
lovely coasts, and the deep azure blue, which lends 
a special charm to the Mediterranean, adds to the 
beauty of the picture. 

Dido already seems to have recognised the advan- 
tages of this place, or she would not have bought 
just that piece of land on which Goletta stands. 
The present Bey built also a pretty villa below the 
walls of his fort, and two thousand steps farther, 
another one for his harem. This was the beginning 
of Goletta, as a seaside place, about ten years ago. 
Both villas are on the sea-shore, and the consequence 
was that all the Ministers and Generals built villas 
here also. They liked the place, and laid out 
gardens and shady woods at great cost, built glass- 
houses, and changed this narrow strip of sand be- 
tween Goletta and Carthage into one of the most 
amusing and charming of watering-places. 

The first and last house belong to the Bey and 
his consort. The Bey is not very partial to ladies' 
society, all the more inconceivable in the midst of 
these Moorish ladies. But he is gallant for all that ; 
and while he is satisfied with a villa built into the 
sea in modern Italian style, his first wife occupies a 
splendid palace, which stands on the site of the 
former harbour of Carthage. It is quite Moorish. 
The extensive structure is surrounded by magnifi- 



192 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

cent gardens ; and the ponds and reservoirs in them 
were the harbour reservoirs of the Carthaginians. 
The well-preserved walls are ornamented with palm- 
trees and bamboo and tamarind shrubs. The wife 
of the Bey can descend into the sea direct from the 
palace — perhaps bathes at the very same place which 
Dido frequented. The archaeologists who have found 
out the most mysterious localities of Carthage have 
kept silent till now about Dido. 

During the last few years Europeans have also 
chosen Goletta for a summer residence, though it is 
not the best European society which meets here. 
Tunis possesses in its European colony peculiar 
elements, whose laxities are partly owing to the in- 
fluence of the Orientals, partly to the lawlessness and 
immorality which prevails here altogether. During 
the heat of summer the capital is unsupportable, so 
that everybody comes here. The knowing Prime 
Minister, Mustapha, who has had the whole ground 
up to Carthage given to him, encouraged this settle- 
ment of the Europeans, had villas built, and European 
houses at his own cost, and let them at high prices, 
so that he has an income of 200,000 francs a year 
from this watering-place alone. He had even an 
English pier built, where there are not only bathing- 
machines, but also a restaurant and a music pavilion. 
But this restaurant is the only one in the place, 
without cafe's or hotels. Who, therefore, comes to 
Goletta must either hire a whole villa or must bring 
his tent and his provisions as for an African expedi- 
tion. And such an encampment on the sea-shore is 
not so unpleasant as it may seem ; it lends itself to 



THE HARBOUR OF GOLETTA. 193 



all sorts of interesting adventures, for there are not 
only European families to be met, but also Arabian 
harems quartered in the same way. 

The pier, here called " Rondo," is the centre of 
all life in the place. Six artists produce daily a 
terrible noise, called Oriental music, on two-stringed 
violins, enough to make one forswear Tunisian 
watering-places for ever. But the Europeans who 
are settled here seem to be accustomed to it. 

The great heat does not allow a very complicated 
toilet, so that the only garment ladies wear is a light 
sort of dressing-gown. They wear straw hats with 
broad brims, and carry large parasols ; their feet, 
without stockings, are covered by light open slippers, 
their hair, always thick and long, falls down over 
their backs, and a bracelet or a necklace is the only 
thing which reminds one of a European lady. In 
this costume, exchanged sometimes for a fashionable 
Trouville bathing-dress, these ladies pass all the 
summer. Husbands cannot possibly complain of 
exorbitant milliners' bills ; and ladies are satisfied, as 
nothing could suit them better. Men live a still more 
unconstrained and easy life ; many of the young 
Tunisian dandies live all the summer in a bathing- 
machine, sleeping there as well ; rain, or even a clouded 
sky, being unknown in Tunis during the hot season. 
It takes them half an hour by rail to go to town in 
the morning, and in the evening they return to 
Goletta. Only when the sun sets does life begin 
there, the unbearable heat keeping people in their 
houses during the day — the Venetian blinds are 
closely drawn, and the curtains let down ; Goletta 

o 



194 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



sleeps. On the other hand, night is changed into 
day, and very pleasant during full moon. Excursions 
are undertaken in carriages or on donkeys to the 
neighbouring watering-places ; or people rest on the 
soft sand, deep in conversation. The ladies bathe at 
night ; and in long wide garments they walk into 
the sea like ghosts. 

But there is a time when the Arabian ladies of 
the harem enjoy plenty of liberty, when they empty 
the cup to the dregs, and make up for the mono- 
tonous life of the rest of the year. In Egypt this 
opportunity occurs at the orgies of the fair of Tanta, 
orgies which are notorious for their immorality ; here, 
in Tunis, it is the festival of Aussa, which is cele- 
brated at mid-summer, and offers plenty of amuse- 
ment for the European on the look-out for adventures. 
But he must be able to speak Arabian or have a 
clever dragoman. The Arabians dedicate one day 
in the year to the sea, and their sacrifice to Neptune 
consists in their bathing together with their families, 
horses, or donkeys. According to an old superstition, 
this is to bring them luck. Long before the time 
comes all the jugglers, snake-charmers, dervishes 
music bands, and narrators of fairy tales in the whole 
country, make the necessary preparations — erect tents 
on the shore, and stalls, as well as movable caf£s. This 
festival is kept throughout the whole Regency, but 
the principal point of attraction is the capital, because 
of its large number of inhabitants and of its wealth. 
The Moorish families from the inland towns as well 
as the Bedouins and the Kabyles, etc., wend their 
way to the coast, more especially towards Goletta, 



THE HARBOUR OF GOLETTA. 195 



erect tents for their wives, and encamp themselves in 
the open air. Many thousands come to this Arabian 
fair and indulge in the wildest revels. It is not 
possible to watch the tents and the women in the 
midst of all this confusion ; and as a great quantity 
of Araki or palm wine is drunk and plenty of 
hashish smoked, the whole company is in a state of 
frantic excitement and religious ecstasy. They ride 
on horseback into the water and roll about, let their 
wives bathe, etc. On that day the Europeans leave 
the place entirely to the Arabs, though some adven- 
turers dare to mix with them in disguise to carry on 
an intrigue which has begun by secret glances long 
ago ; a dangerous experiment, for woe betide him 
if his nationality is discovered, but audaces fortuna 
juvat ! 

No doubt, under French influence this will soon 
alter, and, as in Algiers and Egypt, the Europeans 
will enjoy greater liberties and increase more and 
more, then this beautiful watering-place will be 
appreciated as it deserves. The splendid fast 
steamers of the Rubattino Company take only two 
days from Genoa or Leghorn, and this trip along 
the Italian coast on the blue waters of the Mediter- 
ranean is alone worth while trying to dip one's 
limbs in African waters instead of the cold North 
Sea. 

As a naval seaport Goletta is insignificant, its 
whole fortification consisting of one small fort on the 
shore, and even this is utterly useless, for in front of 
it stands one of the Bey's palaces, which would have 



196 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

to be demolished before any cannon could reach 
the enemy. The dominating points of the gulf are 
the hill on which the once famous " Byrsa," the 
citadel of Carthage, stood, and another hill on which 
the mausoleum of St. Lewis is erected. It is to be 
hoped that the French will spare those two relics of 
ancient times and not destroy them for military 
purposes. Even as a trade port, Goletta is of little 
significance, as the water is too shallow to allow 
steamers to approach nearer than one thousand 
yards. Last year only a French company obtained 
the concession of a safe harbour for ships of every 
size, an undertaking requiring a comparatively small 
outlay. The narrow passage between the gulf and 
the El Bahireh lake is also about to be widened in 
order to enable smaller steamers at least to reach 
Ahe quay of the harbour. 



PART II 

CHAPTER I. 

MATER, A TUNISIAN PROVINCIAL TOWJT. 

Mater is one of the wealthiest and most important 
towns of the Regency of Tunis. Only one day's 
journey from the capital and half that distance from 
Biserta, it is connected with both these places by 
well-kept roads, and lies in the midst of a rich soil 
and at the foot of the north Tunisian Highlands, 
the home of the Berbers. Mater is, together with 
Bedsha, the capital of Barbary ; the population con- 
sists principally of Berbers, Vandals, and Arabians. 
This town is the true type of an Arabian provincial 
town, in which the singular, ancient institutions of 
the Kroumirs show themselves most conspicuously. 
Nothing is more calculated to acquaint the traveller 
with the daily life of this people than a sojourn 
of several weeks in Mater or the above-mentioned 
Bedsha. The author has spent two weeks in the 
house of an Englishman, the only European here, 
and to this he owes the subjoined details. 

When, after a long, tiring ride on a camel, the 



198 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

little town with its white walls comes first in sight, 
the beauty of its situation and surroundings are very- 
striking. Like all towns of Northern Tunis it rises 
on a gentle slope. A single minaret towers above 
the walls ; innumerable high cypresses, almond and 




OUTSIDE THE GATES OF MATER. 



fig trees, with the deep-blue sky in the background, 
form a lovely landscape, and the closer it is ap- 
proached the more picturesque is the view ; the more 
so as on the long journey from Tunis neither town 
nor tree is seen, with the sole exception of a few 



MATER, A TUNISIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN. 199 

grayish -green olive groves. The neighbourhood is 
so bare and desolate that some parts are just like 
the desert. Only after such journeys the delight 
and enthusiasm of travellers is understood when 
describing an oasis. A Tunisian oasis, consisting of 
some miserable huts and a few trees, including high 
palms, is not a very attractive picture, but its charm ' 
increases when surrounded by a tract of sandy 
desert ! 

In consequence of this the aspect of Mater is all 
the more surprising, encompassed as it is by orchards 
and kitchen gardens, so dear to the Berbers. On 
the top of the hill are the ruins of a fort ; the stones 
have been taken from the remains of an ancient 
Roman town in the neighbourhood. An old stone 
bridge unites the two steep banks of the Oned 
Dshumin, flowing by Mater, in whose muddy water 
enormous herds of cattle protect themselves against 
the very painful sting of the gadflies. 

If strangers are not invited to stay with the 
Chalif or with a wealthy inhabitant, it is hard for 
them to find any shelter, and they have to put up 
tents outside the town, for a small Arabian town 
possesses no hotels or inns. European travellers of 
distinction receive often an order from the Bey which 
directs the Caids and Chalifs to provide board and 
lodging for them. But they will always prefer to 
sleep in a tent outside the town to avoid the live 
stock so abundant in every Arabian bed. 

For those Arabs who come from the neighbour- 
hood with their camels and donkeys to the Friday 
market, there are one or two Fonduks (Arabian inns) 



200 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

to receive them. Imagine a square building without 
windows, ten to fifteen feet high, as a rule out of 
repair, and surrounded by heaps of dirt Through a 
shaky gate of thick planks with an antediluvian 
wooden lock, a dirty yard is reached, into which 
eight or ten small doors open. A windowless room, 
with a damp floor covered with one or two straw 
mats in a corner of the yard is the dwelling of the 
landlord. A few pots, a trunk, and some coverlids 
form the furniture of this room. All the other 
rooms of the establishment are similar, whichever 
door is opened, the same dark holes without any 
furniture present themselves. On market days every 
one of these " rooms " is occupied by a whole Arab 
family. Husband, wife, children, camel, and donkey, 
all make themselves comfortable together, and pay 
for this accommodation five charoubs (five farthings) 
per night. Horses and donkeys remaining in the 
yard are charged two charoubs each per day. Not 
only are all the rooms filled on these market days, 
but the yard is crammed with beasts of burden of 
all kinds. Now and then you find a fonduk with an 
upper story built over one corner, with a miserable 
staircase leading to it ; this contains a single room 
without windows or furniture. It is reserved for 
distinguished visitors, as Caids, rich Arab sheiks, etc. 
To avoid as much as possible the inconvenience and 
danger of such places, the regular market-folks hire 
a room by the month, for which they pay tei. 
piastres (five shillings). 

In Mater, as in other provincial towns, these inns 
are generally situated outside the town or at the 



MATER, A TUNISIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN. 201 

extreme end of the streets, so that on entering the 
fonduks are the first building we meet. 

The streets, with their low houses without win- 
dows, are narrow, dirty, and angular, and here, as in 
Tunis, the town is built on the labyrinthian principle 
of a maze. You cannot otherwise explain the 
curious combination of crooked, irregular lanes, which 
widen into open spaces lined with equally miserable, 
dilapidated houses. In one of the principal streets 
the house of the Chalif or provincial governor is, 
situated, and is only distinguished by a top -floor 
and a larger hall. On entering the large gate you 
enter the Chalif 's reception-room or office direct 
from the street, and find him enthroned on a stone 
bench, dressed in the thorough Arabian costume of 
bornous and hood, and surrounded by some adjutants 
and flatterers. Here the intrigues are hatched which 
end in extortions. The room next to this is locked 
and heavily barred ; it is the provincial prison. The 
well-secured windows open into the street, and there 
are good reasons for that. He who is put in here 
gets nothing to eat or drink, nor is he ever allowed 
to leave the square hole on whose bare floor he also 
sleeps. His friends and relations bring him pro- 
visions, and hand them in through the window. The 
Chalif troubles himself no more about him than the 
chief of the police, and both would let him starve. 
Fortunately, the poor fellows need not remain long 
in this hole. The administration of justice in Tunis- 
ian provincial towns is very simple, and I will try 
to describe it in a few words. 

Towns like Mater are always governed by the 



202 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Caid, who pays a large sum for his post, and he 
m return robs and plunders the underlings in his 
district ad libitum. He is the highest judge in all 
crimes and disputes which do not come within the 
reach of the Koran. Those which do, as marriages 
and separations or religious crimes, etc., come before 
the Kadi, of whom there is one in each town who 
has to be always present. The Caid, on the other 
hand, scarcely ever resides in the capital of his 
province, but in Tunis itself, and is represented in 
the former by a Chalif. The judgment of this 
Chalif depends on the sum of money which is offered 
him by the disputants or the criminal. The Caid 
nominates everybody belonging to the provincial 
government ; from the beadle upwards, they are all 
his creatures, who help him to levy black mail on 
the population. He, in his turn, depends again on 
the Ministers. If the latter wants any money he 
deposes the old Caid to nominate a new one, who 
has of course to pay several thousand piastres for 
his place. The Caid does the same with his 
subalterns, for they receive no salary, but have to 
extract their pay from the population. Before the 
old Caid gives up his office the Prime Minister has 
him arrested, and he is only set free after having 
paid a high ransom, sometimes as much as 30,000 
or 40,000 piastres. The new Caid follows the same 
proceeding with the subalterns of the old one — for 
instance, the chief of the police. On a few bribed 
Bedouins proving that this latter had cheated them, 
he is locked up and has to pay a large sum of 
money before he is liberated. The policemen are 



MATERIA TUNISIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN. 203 

simply armed citizens — called Mochasni — who are 
not paid either, and they differ from the other 
inhabitants only by wearing the ordinary Moorish 
dress instead of the white bornous generally worn. 
If they receive the order to arrest anybody, the 
prisoner, after having undergone his punishment, or 
if innocent, before his liberation, has to pay to them 
and their chief or shaush a considerable gratuity, or 
he is not allowed to leave the prison. Consequently 
it is the poorest as a rule who languish in the jails, 
amongst them often Bedouins from the country ; 
and those objects of oppression are never admitted 
to official posts, as Kadi, Mufti or Caid. 

There is a singular institution in Mater and 
other towns of Barbary, and which has a great 
influence on judicial decisions. During my walks 
in Mater I often passed a building which had, like 
a mosque, a large yard, a well, and arcades, and was 
not only the finest edifice in the town, but was also 
better preserved than any other. Walls and arcades 
were of dazzling whiteness, and covered here and 
there with coloured paintings, and the yard was 
scrupulously clean. My English companion, who 
had already spent six years in Mater, always warned 
me not to stand still before this building, or to stare 
at it. It was a " Zauya," one of the holy sanctuaries 
of the Mohammedans. As all criminals, including 
murderers, are invulnerable as long as they are 
within a Zauya, they all fly to it after having 
committed their misdeeds. In the meanwhile the 
relations of the criminal treat with the injured party, 
or, if it is a case of murder, with the relations of the 



2o 4 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

murdered one, and arrange the amount of compensa- 
tion. After this has been paid, the criminal may 
leave the Zauya without the law being able to touch 
him. In the neighbourhood of Dar-el-Bey, the seat 
of the Caid, are the offices of the notaries, of which 
every Tunisian town possesses a good number. 
These " offices " would be better designated by 
"booths," for they are very small recesses opening 
into the street ; the low wooden bench which fills 
up the whole space is divan, writing-table, and record 
office all in one. The visitor takes off his shoes, 
ascends this bench, and sits down with his legs 
crossed by the side of the notary. As Arabians 
never put the paper on the table when writing, but 
hold it in their hand, a table is not necessary. The 
notary's books consist of a small stamped journal, 
which has to be bought from the Government every 
year for sixteen shillings, and of which the first page 
contains the printed rules. Every case is noted on 
the page of the journal corresponding with the date, 
and these notes form the only evidence in a law-suit, 
be it ever so complicated. Letters and documents 
must be written on stamped paper, and there is a 
tax of one per cent to the State for every transac- 
tion. The income of a notary is a very small one, 
and they could scarcely earn their living if they 
were not now and then willing to alter the books 
for a consideration. 

Next to the street of the notaries is the street 
of the barbers, who are such important personages 
throughout the East. Though it would be more 
practical to have them distributed all over the town, 



MATER, A TUNISIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN 205 

the Oriental spirit of caste is specially developed 
in them. The barbers' shops are all in a row, and 
between the meshes of the network which is used 
instead of a door, the barbers are seen busy shaving 
Mohammedan scalps. 

The bazaars of Mater are rather uninteresting, if, 
as was the case with the author, the inspection of 
the bazaars of Damascus, Cairo, Constantinople, and 
Tunis have gone before. Every guild has its street 
or its place ; the shops are small niches in the wall, 
where the goods inside just leave sufficient room for 
the vender to sit with crossed legs in the midst of 
them. Most of the dealers are " Dsherbis," which 
means descendants from the Isle of " Dsherba," in 
the small Syrta, a race clever and skilled in trade, 
which is in their hands in all Tunisian towns; the 
Maltese and the Jews only compete successfully 
with them, while the true Arab or Moor is rarely 
prosperous in trade. The streets of Mater are very 
lively both night and morning, and it is very in- 
teresting to watch the various national types which 
collect here. The citizens sit before the bazaars in 
groups, horses are impatiently waiting for their 
masters, tied to some big stones. Women dressed 
in the blue garment here so common, with thick 
silver bracelets on arms and ankles, pass with the 
noise of a dragoon's clinking spurs. Bedouins and 
Kabyles, with their long bornouses, generally ragged, 
the hoods drawn over their heads, and tied with a 
black cord called " Chrit," are by far the majority 
of the passers-by. Now and then a mad " Saint," a 
Sheik, trips through the streets and is treated with 



206 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

veneration by the populace. All his wishes art 
instantly fulfilled. He goes to a merchant, fof 
instance, and asks him for five gold piastres ; he 
gets them at once, but carries them off to make a 
present of them to somebody else. He begs of the 
one to give to the other. We also were fortunate 
enough to receive a new bornous from one of these 
saints. My companion advised me to keep the 
strange present for the moment, as the owner would 
turn up soon enough, and so he did. 

The girls walk about unveiled up to eight years 
old. At that age they are already thoroughly 
developed, well built, and have pleasant features ; 
but partly from climatic influences, partly through 
neglect, they are generally liable to disease of the 
eyes, many being partially or totally blind. 

The principal business here is done in cattle and 
corn, and every Friday a market is held for the 
purpose ; they also supply the mountain tribes and 
the Bedouin duars of the neighbourhood with all 
sorts of goods. But, generally speaking, the misery 
is so great, and the taxes and extortions of the 
Government are so heavy, that the agent of the 
French Consul, an Arab, had no difficulty in gaining 
partisans for the French protectorate by kind words 
and a little money. Therefore the town of Mater 
would not have resisted the French very much, had 
it not been for the massacres and the cruelties 
towards the Kroumirs, which were greatly exagge- 
rated by the Arabs ; their mode of military occupa- 
tion also turned the sympathies of the populace 
against them. 



THE MEDSHERDA VALLEY. 207 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MEDSHERDA VALLEY AND ITS TOWNS. 

THOUGH Tunis, the Africa of the Romans, is, to- 
gether with Egypt, one of the oldest countries of 
the whole continent, and has no doubt given its 
name to the latter, it is in regard to aspect, products, 
and soil, anything but African. The north coast 
down to the capital shows the characteristics of Sicily, 
whereas the interior, as far as the salt lakes, recall 
the Roman Campagna. According to its nature, 
Tunis does not belong to Africa but to the countries 
of the Mediterranean, which, from Spain to Palestine, 
from Greece to Morocco, resemble each other very 
much. The vegetation is even much scantier in 
Tunis than in Sicily or Spain, or in any other 
country on the Mediterranean, not to mention the 
Riviera, whose abundant vegetation is only found 
again in the far-off East, on the banks of the Nile. 
Bordighera alone has probably more palm-trees in 
her gardens, and Palermo more orange -trees, than 
the whole northern half of the Regency of Tunis. 
Not only that, but there is even no foliage in the 
valleys. The olive - tree is the only tree which 



208 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

thrives here and is seen most, and it is one of the 
principal sources of income to the Regency. But 
even that is oftener seen in the Sahel, the middle 
part of Tunis, than it is in the poor north. 

The main river, which flows from west to east 
through northern Tunis, and at the same time the 
only river of the Regency which flows direct into 
the sea, is the Medsherda, the Bagrada of the Romans. 
Its tributaries are insignificant like itself, its valley 
in many parts narrow and enclosed by high rocks. 
As the mouth is approached, the valley gets wider, 
till it changes into a large swamp filled with salt- 
water. This swamp contains the ruins of Utica. 

Where there are no trees there is no water. 
When the Arab hordes inundated the Regency in 
the beginning of the Hegira, there were large forests 
in the mountains, into which the native Christian 
populace fled. These forests were sacrificed to the 
fanaticism of Islamitic bands, and were destroyed and 
burnt. The water disappeared with them, and with 
the water fertility, so that the torch with which the 
Mohammedans destroyed these magnificent forests 
destroyed themselves as well. The best proof of 
this are their descendants of to-day. 

What is told about the great fertility of Tunis is 
all a myth. The country is withered, and scarcely 
supports its scanty, native population. The former 
granary of the Roman Empire can, in consequence 
of the want of water, scarcely be called fertile, and 
the former abundance is to be found only where 
sufficient moisture exists, that is to say, round Tunis 
and the whole north-east corner of the Regency, 



THE MEDSHERDA VALLEY. 209 

between the capital and the port of Biserta. The 
mountains north of the Medsherda down to the 
sea-coast are bare, stony, and decayed, the valleys 
are overgrown with thorny bushes ; on the abysses 
only wild asparagus, holly-trees, and rosemary grow, 
and the latter, together with the olive-tree, is the 
only fuel of the Kabyles and Bedouins. The care 
the inhabitants take of every bit of wood, and the 
patience with which they collect the excrements of 
camels, is a proof of the want of forests and trees. 
On his wanderings the Bedouin is generally mounted 
on horseback or on a donkey, sometimes his little 
boy in front of him if no other animal for riding 
is to be had, but his wife and daughter, as well as 
the rest of the family, march barefoot behind their 
lord and master, occupying themselves zealously 
by picking up the dry rosemary -branches and the 
excrements by the road. 

The Medsherda river is the " Tiber " of Tunis, 
just as its surrounding territory is its " Campagna." 
Not half as large as the Roman river, it has the 
same turbid colour, the same muddy water and 
steep banks. Nowhere deep enough for navigation, 
it has only few places which allow wading through 
it. It has but two bridges, one on the way from 
Tunis to Tebourba and the Kroumir district, the 
other not far from the ruins of Utica on the route 
to Biserta. During the last year, however, some 
bridges have been thrown over the river in the 
Medsherda valley, for the railway leading from 
Algiers to Tunis, to cut off the many windings of 
its middle course. Its valley, once covered by rich 

P 



210 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

cornfields, shows no traces of them now ; the greater 
part is full of rushes and reeds, and stocked with 
numberless water - birds and tortoises ; the higher 
districts bordering on it show again the charactei of 
steppes. Almost waterless in summer, it swamps 
the whole neighbourhood in spring, and makes all 
passage through this valley without streets and roads 
impossible ; in its lower course only, when emerging 
from the mountains of Medchez-el-Bab up to the 
hills where Utica once lay, does it bring plenteous- 
ness. But below Utica, near the village of Bu- 
Shatr, it is again lost in salty marshes, of which one 
does not know whether they are to be called land 
or sea. 

Its tributaries are just as turbid and marshy and 
as useless ; they render progress in these steppes 
most difficult, and the transport of artillery would 
during military operations be a matter of impossi- 
bility. The river-system is left to itself; no canal, 
no regulation of the bed, etc., helps the stagnant 
waters to flow off which collect in spring, and the 
consequence is that the scanty number of inhabit- 
ants in the . few small towns suffer from fever and 
other illnesses. 

But the likeness between the Medsherda valley 
and the Campagna goes even farther. It is the old 
Roman time which stamps Frikia with the same 
characteristics as the morassy and partly - deserted 
districts of the former States of the Church. At 
every stone - throw, here and there, the ruins of 
ancient Roman towns, of temples, baths, and aque- 
ducts are met with. If in some places only shape- 



THE MEDSHERDA VALLEY. 



less heaps of stones show the old towns, there are, 
on the other hand, grand edifices of stone, covered 
with beautiful sculptures and inscriptions, towering 
above the miserable walls of the Arabic " douars," 
or villages, whose inhabitants have, owl -like, chosen 
to nestle here. Truly, a sad spectacle ! And what 
the Romans built so many centuries ago will cer- 
tainly outlast the frail buildings added by the Arabs. 
We have the Roman colony of Frikia distinctly 
before our eyes, and Islam with its mediaeval 
civilisation, its mania of destruction, was unable to 
wipe away the grand traces of this early Christian 
Era. Roman Tunis seems to me covered with a 
large veil, through which the visage of Ceres is seen, 
who once ruled here. Islam has outlived itself in 
Tunis entirely. 

The Regency is a piece of the Middle Ages ; not 
an iota remains of the time when the power of the 
Moors was paramount. In Dugga, Te-Cesa, and other 
towns of the Medsherda district Rome's palaces and 
temples are still standing ; the Islamitic structures 
of later times are decayed, a very picture of the 
people itself. 

The only roads made by the Government, and 
still partly preserved, lead from the capital vid 
Testour and Tebursuk to the fortified town of Kef, 
situated near the Algerian frontier ; another leads 
from Tunis to the capital of the Berber and Kroumir 
district, Bedsha ; finally, the third and best condi- 
tioned takes you to a place endowed lavishly by 
nature, but neglected by men — the harbour of 
Biserta. The others are only footways on which 



2i2 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

the camel and donkey wend their way with difficulty. 
Carriages cannot be used on any other roads but 
those mentioned above, and only the port of Susa, 
situated south of Tunis in the little Syrta, can be 
reached rather easily by carriage. 




A BEDOUIN FAMILY. 



By following the route mentioned first we pass 
through hilly land, fertile and well cultivated till we 
reach the Medsherda and the old picturesque town 
of Testour. Only seldom a wandering Bedouin 
family is met with ; the daily camel caravan between 



THE MEDSHERDA VALLEY. 213 

the capital and Kef is the only means of communi- 
cation between the towns of Testour and Tebursuk 
lying on the route. Swamps have to be waded 
through, ravines have to be passed, and mountains 
scaled. Now and then we pass cornfields and see 
the Bedouins break off the ripe ears — for we are in 
the month of May, the harvest month of Tunis. 

The Bedouin does not cut the corn, but seizes a 
number of ears and severs them with an indented 
scythe from the stalk, which is left almost in its 
entire length. The Bedouin women sit by the road 
and beat with short wooden cudgels the ears which 
are spread between their legs. It is true they do 
not work for themselves ; scarcely enough remains 
to them to save them from starvation, all goes to the 
Caids, Generals, and Ministers. There is only one 
escape — emigration. This system of extortion has 
now gone on for centuries, and the once fiery proud 
Arabs have turned into Fellahs ; poorer or more 
submissive Fellahs could not be produced by Egypt 
itself ; this is true, at least, of the districts which can 
be reached from the capital, and are subject to the 
Government. And not only the Government robs 
them, also the wild Berbers from the mountains, and 
this is the reason they hide and bury carefully any- 
thing they have, nevertheless, managed to save by 
hard work. 

Hence the great poverty and thorough decay in 
the towns and villages we pass. There may be 
many a wealthy man amongst the merchants in the 
bazaars of Bedsha, Kef, and Tebursuk, but woe 
betide him if he shows his wealth by a home, be it 



214 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

ever so simple, or by renovating his house, or by the 
rebuilding of a broken-down wall. General and Caid 
are down upon him at once, oppress him, and lock 
him up till he has paid the required sum. This 
open-faced robbery, this oppression and uncertainty, 
are partly the cause that everybody is ruined, and 
everything at a standstill. 

Tebursuk is an Arabic town of ruins built on the 
top of a Roman one. Wherever Islam reigns, the 
Arabs made themselves comfortable as to dwellings. 
The Roman structures were everywhere changed 
into Arabic ones, and the old city walls and forts, 
dating from Byzantine times, protect the Arabian 
intruders to-day. The town is in ruins, just like 
Testour, close by, and has about two or three thou- 
sand inhabitants. Kef, three or four days' journey 
from Tunis, is also a ruined town with four or five 
thousand poor inhabitants, amongst whom are about 
a thousand Jews. The town, situated where once 
the ill-famed Sicca Veneria was, extends along a 
mountain ridge, and an old citadel towers over it, 
also dating from Byzantine times, and just as decayed 
as the town itself and its walls. There seem to have 
been Byzantine forts on the surrounding heights as 
well, but the Arabs let them fall to ruins. Bedsha, 
the capital and the central market of the district of 
the Kroumirs, resembles in every respect the towns 
just described, though there is more traffic and vital 
power to be found there. 



HABITS AND LIFE OF THE BERBERS. 215 



CHAPTER III. 

HABITS AND LIFE OF THE BERBERS. 

THOUGH near to Europe and easily accessible, Tunis 
is very little known, especially its northern parts, and 
until now a correct map of it is not to be found. 
The part north of the Medsherda river is certainly 
ethnographically unexplored. The inhabitants of 
this district, from the Algerian frontier to the capital 
of Tunis, consists, as in Algiers, of different races, 
as Berbers, Arabs, Moors, Vandals, and Turks ; but 
here a greater amalgamation between the hetero- 
geneous elements took place, so that the races have 
not remained pure. The first inhabitants of the 
country intermixed with the Vandals retired into the 
mountains when the conquering Arabian hordes 
invaded the country, but they adopted the Moham- 
medan religion, and many of their habits and customs ; 
in the course of centuries they also received many 
European and Arabic expressions into their language, 
and latterly this has taken place to such a degree 
that they now make little use of their original 
language, and in their intercourse with the Arabs of 
the plain and of the towns they speak Tunisian 



216 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Arabic, or " Machrebi." If the Arabs do not under- 
stand them always, the reason must be looked for in 
a thieves' jargon they make use of, as do also the 
thieving Bedouin hordes on the Southern and 
Western frontier of Tunis and in Algiers, just as the 
criminals of our capitals have a slang of their own. 
And they gave up their peculiarities in many other 
respects ; they exchanged them with the Arabs, so 
that the difference between the two principal groups 
is in our day scarcely noticeable. The number of 
inhabitants in Northern and Middle Tunis reaches 
scarcely half a million, and north of the Medsherda 
river and its district the number amounts only to 
200,000, most of them of Berber origin ; and only 
round Biserta, in the north-east corner of the Regency, 
are Bedouins and people from Tripoli to be found. 

As already mentioned, the differences of race that 
mark the Kabyles, Kroumirs, and Bedouins respect- 
ively, are not nearly so conspicuous as in Algiers, 
where the Kabyles live in greater numbers, and do 
not come much in contact with the nomadic tribes 
of the plain. Still they are sufficient to be noticed. 
While, for instance, all the Bedouins have black hair, 
eyes, and beard, the Berbers have often red or fair 
hair, blue eyes, light bristly beards, and also a 
lighter complexion. Their dress does not differ 
much. Both wear long linen shirts down to their 
knees, and if they can afford it the thick bornous 
over it. This latter is, if they are poor, manufactured 
by their wives, of dark camel hair, while the rich 
wear it white, and exchange it in summer for a light 
cloak with silk tassels, These bornouses are con- 



HABITS AND LIFE OF THE BERBERS. 217 

sidered important heirlooms, and on account of their 
durability they are often worn by three generations. 
Formerly the Berbers had no head-gear at all, but 
they have now adopted the red fez of the Bedouins, 
in Tunis called sheshia, round which the thin white 
turban cloth is wound. In summer, when the heat 
is very great, they wear an enormous straw hat with 
a broad brim, which they put on the top of the 
turban and of the hood of the bornous as well. In 
the mountains one often meets poor Berbers dressed 
only in a dirty shirt ; a short black coat with arm- 
holes and hood serves them as a cloak ; they never 
put it on, but throw it over the back and pull the 
hood over the head. The thick and thorny brambles, 
the aloes, the wild asparagus, and cactuses growing 
in the mountains of the Atlas, make it necessary for 
them to wear leather gaiLers up to their knees. They 
wear either straw slippers, or oftener sandals with 
thick felt soles like the Chinese. On horseback 
they take off this covering for the feet, and wealthy 
sheiks then don high top-boots of yellow leather 
without heels. 

The women amongst the tribes of Barbary enjoy 
many more liberties than their sisters of Arabia. 
While the latter may never show themselves with 
unveiled faces, and even cover these during work in 
house and field with their hands as soon as a stranger 
approaches, the women of Barbary may not only go 
about unveiled, but may speak to men in the course 
of business, etc. Their dress is the same as is worn 
by the Bedouin women : they wind a simple piece of 
blue material in a very clever way round their body 



2i8 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and tie it by a cord round their hips. It does not 
concern them much that this piece of stuff does 
not cover them sufficiently. They cannot be called 
pretty. When very young they are well built, but 
as soon as they marry — from the age of fourteen 
or fifteen — they have such hard work in their 
miserable houses that they soon grow old like the 
Bedouin women, and to this must be added the 
complete absence of all medical aid in confinements 
in these rough mountain regions. While the Arabs, 
partly by tradition, partly through the intercourse 
with Europeans, possess many remedies and medi- 
cines for their illnesses, the Kabyles are utterly 
ignorant, and have more recourse to old women's 
witchcraft than real remedies. 

Generally speaking, the position of women from 
Barbary is a much higher and more favourable one 
than that of the Arabian women. They have the 
reputation, also, of being better looking and better 
made, and especially of being cleaner, perhaps 
because there is more water to be found in their 
mountains than in the dry plains of the Bedouins, 
where it .never rains. The Koran grants the 
Bedouins permission to perform their prescribed 
ablutions before prayer with sand if they have no 
water — a proof of the prevailing dearth of it. A 
husband has to buy his wife in Barbary — that is 
to say, he has to pay his future father-in-law a 
certain sum, or the value in cattle and horses, so 
that, contrary to our ideas in Europe, a family 
blessed with a great many daughters is to be con- 
sidered fortunate. But while in this way daughters 



HABITS AND LIFE OF THE BERBERS. 219 

bring capital to their fathers, nothing is left them 
on his death, when everything goes to the sons 
exclusively. This is to prevent an heiress marry- 
ing into another Kabyle tribe, and so increase the 
resources of the stranger. 

If a husband leaves his wife and disappears, and 
nothing is heard of him during one or two years, the 
wife is free, and returns to her father's house. This 
is also the case when they are divorced by the Kadi, 
but then the husband has to appoint a certain sum 
for her keep as long as she lives. Every separated 
or deserted wife is absolutely free, and nobody 
blames her for eventual intrigues. It has been said 
of some Algerian tribes that they offer their wives 
to visitors and strangers, but this is only due to the 
circumstances detailed above. 

It will thus be seen that the wife of the Kabyle 
is not his slave, like a Bedouin's wife, but his friend 
and companion. While the latter may never take 
her meals at the same time as her husband, but 
must attend upon him, a Kabyle family eat out of 
the same dish. Husband and wife supplement each 
other, a state of things which is no doubt a remnant 
of the time when the Berbers were Christians. The 
woman is even active on the battlefield : she dresses 
wounds, provides munition, and handles a gun even, 
if necessary ; turning thus often into a fury, as the 
war between the French and the Kabyles testifies. 

Tattooing is very much in use amongst the 
Berbers. The men tattoo their aims and calves 
only — sometimes with the funniest devices. The 
women tattoo, in addition, face, neck, and chest; 



220 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

and their hands and feet are ornamented in a way 
which recalls the black open-worked mittens of our 
ladies ; the pattern is just as carefully punctured. 
There is generally a small square on each cheek, 
and between the eyebrows a little cross, the origin of 
which I shall mention in another chapter, and which 
is also found amongst the Bedouin women. As the 
Berbers never were good Mohammedans they did 
not object to the form of the cross. But the religious 
sheiks and Marabouts do not approve of it, and if 
one of these marry, they compel the woman to get 
rid of it by lime and black soap. Mothers tattoo 
their children when quite young by pricking the 
pattern with needles, and by rubbing soot on it 
while it still bleeds. 

The Berber tribes of Tunis, the Kroumirs amongst 
them, are not, like the Algerians, tied to fixed abodes. 
It is true that some live in houses built by them- 
selves of unbaked bricks, or amongst the numerous 
Roman ruins which cover the still unexplored chains 
of mountains north of the Medsherda river, or they 
like to erect their miserable huts against such ruins, 
which at t*he same time supply the building materials. 
But many tribes lead a nomadic life, just like the 
Bedouins ; they live in black tents platted of camel 
hair, and carry on agriculture and cattle-breeding 
like them. But whether tent or hut, their dwelling 
is always divided into two parts, the left one for wife 
and children, the right one for the husband. Rarely 
do they possess a harem ; they are generally satisfied 
with one wife. 

Their household is a very simple one, and as a 



HABITS AND LIFE OF THE BERBERS. 221 

rule it consists of a few home-made covers, mats, 
and sacks, some pots for cooking, and a small hand- 
mill of stone for grinding. More important are the 
arms and saddle and harness of the men. He 
values these highly, keeps them, unlike the Bedouin, 
scrupulously clean, and never touches them without 
putting a piece of leather over them first. A Bedouin 
allows his sword and gun to rust, and says, "A black 
dog bites as well as a white one." The Kabyle 
makes his own ammunition, and also fabricates his 
own knives and swords if no opportunity offers to 
steal them, which he prefers. 

The equipment of a Berber or Kroumir consists 
generally of an old percussion gun and two old 
pistols, with which, however, he never misses ; then 
a yataghan or a broad Bedouin sword with a flat 
leather sheath ; lances he never carries. The horses 
of the Tunisian Berbers are small and lean, but 
excellent climbers. They are never shod behind but 
only on their fore-feet. Their shoes are very thin, 
without sponges, and the ends join so as to form a 
complete circle. Not to deprive the horse -shoe of 
its elasticity, no nails are put into the iron behind. 
The saddles are made of wood, covered with red or 
yellow leather, and behind and in front high boards 
for leaning on, so that the rider has not much room 
between. The stirrup, mostly strapped short, is of 
iron, and has the form of a sandal with a square sole ; 
the edges are very sharp, and serve as spurs. The 
high top-boots of the rich Berbers have only one 
spur, probably on that Jew's principle who, when 
asked the reason of a similar arrangement, said, 



£22 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

n When one half of a horse is spurred, the other half 
must run too." Instead of the small wheel a sharp 
long spike serves to touch the horse. 

Many more details might be given of the dress, 
equipment, and the mode of living of the Berbers, 
but the above details will perhaps suffice to give an 
approximate idea of this aboriginal people. There 
remains only to describe the highly interesting and 
singular community of the single tribes. They form 
here, as in Algiers, a complete republic, with an 
organisation recalling Switzerland and the United 
States. This they possessed from time immemorial, 
and neither the dominion of the Turks, of the 
French, or of the Bey of Tunis could quite revoke it. 
Wars and the lawless state of affairs during the last- 
named Regency have nevertheless shaken it, and their 
amalgamation with the Arabs could only contribute 
to the destruction of their fine republican institutions. 
The many tribes inhabiting the mountain chains 
between the Algerian frontier and the lakes of 
Biserta, whose number I should estimate at over 
twenty, form together a kind of confederation, of 
which the different tribes might be the single cantons. 
The Berbers designate the division of their nation 
into tribes and villages very ingeniously, as with 
body, members, and fingers (Ardsh, Feched, and 
Deshra). In the " fingers," respective villages, there 
are municipalities which are elected by all the 
Berbers of the place. They assemble every Friday 
on their market-place, and elect twice a year an 
Amihn or Mayor, then an administrator, several 
policemen and counsellors. This corporation forms 



HABITS AND LIFE OF THE BERBERS. 223 

together the Dshemma (literally " Mosque "). All 
Amihns of one tribe choose amongst themselves an 
"Amihn el Umena" — that is to say, a mayor above 
the mayors — and these, together with the religious 
sheiks and Marabouts, form a kind of senate, which 
decides the question of war and peace between the 
single tribes, and in all important home affairs, etc. 
Although it would scarcely be supposed, they have 
their party intrigues, their ambitious candidates, 
orators, and hereditary rights, etc., like any other 
republic. Though there is no hierarchy amongst 
the Mohammedans, and still less amongst the Berbers, 
the Marabouts might be considered as such, for their 
authority and influence is very great. A Kroumir 
may not pray all the year round, he may not fast 
during the Rhamadan, but he will repair the house 
or kubba (mausoleum) of a Marabout if he sees it is 
damaged ; he will take him food and drink, and pay 
him taxes which amount to a hundredth part of their 
cattle and a tithe of their harvest. 

While the Marabouts exercise influence over the 
whole tribe, without exactly possessing an acknow- 
ledged power, the Dshemmas are the authorities of 
every village ; the Amihn or Mayor is the highest 
executive power and judge at the same time, while 
the " Counsellors " make the laws. The " Shaush " 
execute the sentences. The Berbers are the only 
Mohammedans who have their own code of laws 
instead of the Koran, this former dating probably 
from before the Christian Era. 

According to this code, capital punishment and 
the bastinado, so customary in Tunis, are prohibited 



224 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

to the Kroumirs. A murderer is punished by the 
Amihn by having his house destroyed, his property 
confiscated, and by being banished for ever ; but 
here, as in Sicily and Corsica, the " Vendetta " does 
not allow a murderer to live long. Other crimes 
and misdemeanours, as thefts from the people of his 
race, etc. (stealing from strangers is not considered a 
theft), are punished by heavy fines, of which one 
third goes to the Amihn and the Dshemma, another 
is saved by the Amihn for times of war to buy arms, 
ammunition, and powder, and the other serves to 
help the old, the sick, and the poor. 

It will be seen from this that the Berber is abso- 
lutely free ; though paying taxes for his mosque and 
the community, he does not pay for the Bey and his 
Ministers. The Tunisian Government has never suc- 
ceeded in mastering the Kroumirs, or in compelling 
them to pay taxes. They form an independent 
republic, excellently organised, and depend on 
nobody but themselves. At public discussions every- 
body is heard and listened to as if he were a sheik 
or Amihn. No despotic monarch oppresses them, 
nobody receives their taxes without their knowing 
what they are used for. Under these circumstances 
it is not to be wondered at if they try to preserve 
their independence in opposition to the Bey and the 
French. They know, moreover, very well that robbery 
and theft go unpunished according to their laws only, 
and they do not wish to exchange this convenience for 
the doubtful submission to French rule and French 
law. However, their liberty will not last much longer, 
and they will not escape the French this time. 



THE RUINS OF UTICA. 22\ 



CHAPTER IV. 

TO THE RUINS OF UTICA. 

The archaeologist finds nowhere a richer and more 
productive field for his researches than in the north- 
eastern part of the Regency of Tunis. All the wide 
territories from Biserta down to the capital are 
replete with ruins of ancient Roman towns, bridges, 
and other structures ; in some places these are found 
on the surface, in others they are half buried or 
hidden under the earth, and only some remaining 
pillars or fragments betray the place where once a 
large town may have stood. The Mohammedan 
populace have in their ignorance and roughness de- 
stroyed and removed a good deal of this, and if still 
so rich a field is left for the archaeologist, it only 
shows the height of culture which Carthage possessed. 
During the many centuries which have passed since 
the last destruction of Carthage not a single stone 
has been taken from Tunisian mountains, not a 
quarry opened to supply building material for the 
towns of the Regency. All these towns, with their 
palaces, mosques, towers, and walls, are built from 
the splendid stones of these Roman ruins. 

Q 



226 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

It is therefore surprising that there are still so 
many ruins existing. It is true they are not situated 
near the Arab places, or conveniently for destruction, 
or to be used for modern building purposes. Car- 
thage and Utica, however, were too near to the Tunis 
of to-day to escape, so that there is not one stone 
left upon another. Wherever the Arabs came they 
tried to destroy the traces of their great predecessors. 
Hatred and contempt for everything foreign, indif- 
ference towards the architectural treasures of past 
ages, and finally selfishness and indolence, were the 
cause of their levelling with the ground, and using 
for their tasteless buildings those famous ruins which 
the European preserves and protects with so much 
care. It would be interesting to know whether any 
of these Arab fanatics ever thought of the founders 
when destroying those precious ruins ; whether the 
thought of their predecessors who once possessed 
this land ever entered their head. Scarcely. While 
Egypt, Palestine, Algiers, and even Persia have their 
archaeological museums, and employ European pro- 
fessional men to undertake excavations, and while 
they protect their historic edifices in every way they 
can, there 'is nothing of the kind to be seen here, 
where the incredible ignorance and lethargy of 
Government and people allow everything to go to 
wrack and ruin. 

From Mater I made an excursion to the so-called 
ruins of Utica, which are half a day's journey to the 
east. This part of the country is, with the exception 
of a few plots, utterly uncultivated, notwithstanding 
its natural fertility. Thorns, wild asparagus, heather, 



THE RUINS OF UTICA. 227 

and prickly esparto grass cover the wide roadless 
steppes, which here and there are crossed by steep 
rocky mountain-chains. The horses pick out their 
way carefully between the thorny weeds, and cannot 
be induced to accelerate their pace. For miles there 
is neither house nor tree, only here and there those 
Roman ruins, and the burning sun above our heads. 
Under these circumstances travelling can scarcely be 
called pleasant. A guide and an escort are indis- 
pensable, and money and provisions must also be 
carried about, and neither the most pleasant travel- 
ling-companions nor the most interesting adventures 
and discoveries, can reconcile us to the hardships of 
this journey, especially as the danger of being 
attacked by highwaymen has to be added. The 
mountains between Tunis and Biserta which we 
have to pass are a notorious hiding-place for the 
Bedouin robbers, who have a preference for this part, 
because near it is the road much frequented by 
caravans leading from the harbour towns of the 
north to the capital of Tunis. There has, however, 
been an improvement of late ; the traffic on the road 
has very much increased, and the Government sends 
now and then mounted zaptiehs to reconnoitre. Not 
that the Bedouins would be much afraid of them, for 
the Tunisian zaptiehs as watchmen resemble those 
dogs which bark, but do not bite. 

Frequently on our way we came across little 
mounds consisting of small stones, evidently carried 
hither by human hands. Our guide explained them 
to be the graves of those murdered by the robbers. 
According to an old Mohammedan custom every 



228 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

passer-by throws a stone on such a grave, and this 
is the origin of these sad monuments of evil deeds. 
During our ride of several hours through the moun- 
tain valleys we held loaded revolvers in our hands, 
a precaution recommended by the dragoman, who 
had had some unpleasant experience at the same 
place before. We passed many Roman ruins, well 
preserved ; high pillars and arches of the grand 
aqueduct of Utica, which formed a worthy companion 
to the other famous one of Carthage. 

At last we left the mountains behind us, and we 
reached a plain extending over many miles, which at 
the time of our visit, in the month of April, gloried 
in the most splendid green, mixed with the many 
other colours of numberless herbs in blossom. To 
the north the mountain-chain, called Dshebel Kech- 
bata, extends in a wide arch down to the sea ; 
southward, about ten miles farther, a low ridge of 
hills, on which the aqueduct lies, runs parallel 
with it. In the midst of this plain, surrounded by 
these two elevations, flows the Oned Medsherda, 
the Bagrada of the ancients, and empties itself at 
a distance of about fifteen miles into the lake of 
Porto Farina, which is connected with the sea. The 
colouring of the plain in front of us was beautiful 
beyond description, the innumerable meadow-flowers 
which luxuriate in tropical abundance between the 
juicy green quite overpower the grass and cover it 
with rosy, orange -coloured, or white patches. The 
whole looked like a gigantic Oriental carpet, and it 
is very likely that the Persians and Syrians have 
taken the ideas for the composition of their famous 



THE RUINS OF UTICA. 229 

carpets from the magnificent patterns offered them 
here. And as they weave into the midst of their 
many-coloured textures passages from the Koran in 
white colour, so does the winding Bagrada, with its 
numerous branches, intersect this natural carpet like 
the writing of Titans. The high and bare mountains, 
covered in some places with ruins, in others with the 
small snow-white Kubbas of the Marabouts, the plain 
with its river, and finally, far off by the ridge of hills, 
the ruins of Utica, presented a picture which reminded 
me of two similar towns of ancient culture : the 
valley of the Rio Pecos with the Taos Pueblo and 
the Aztec ruins of New Mexico ; and, still more, of 
the famous valley of Thebes and Karnak in Upper 
Egypt. At the time when the three towns just 
mentioned were large and populated the resemblance 
was not as striking as to-day, for the valley near 
which Utica lies to-day was then covered by the sea, 
which penetrated as far as the mountains, and made 
Utica a seaport. A large harbour with enormous 
fortifications received the galleys, sailing and rowing 
boats, which came to Utica from all parts of the 
Mediterranean ; grand palaces of marble and alabas- 
ter lined the streets, and the palace of the governor 
rose on an island in the midst of the harbour ; on 
the mountain behind the town the great amphi- 
theatre was situated in which the baiting of wild 
beasts took place ; temples, theatres, fountains, and 
statues beautified the densely-populated town, which 
towards the land was closed in by strong walls. 

What a mighty change since then ! The sea has 
retired to a great distance, and its shores are now 



230 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

ten miles away from Utica ; the harbour which once 
held the proud Roman ships can be traversed with 
dry feet. The archaeologist alone succeeds in dis- 
covering a likeness between the Utica of old and its 
scanty remnants of to-day, for even the lines of the 
ancient sea-shore are effaced. The swampy tide of 
the Medsherda river has caused this change. The 
masses of earth and mire which it brought from the 
interior of the country settled in the Bay of Utica, 
and turned first the harbour, then the bay itself, into 
a marsh, and in the course of thousands of years 
changed it into good arable land, through which the 
Medsherda river flows now. 

Single Arab farm huts shaded by a few orange 
and almond trees, now and then a herd of cows and 
some Bedouin tents, are all you see in this valley. 
No trace of Utica itself remains. On asking our 
dragoman for it he only smiled and shook his head. 
Our road now leads through rich fields up a gentle 
hill, on which the lonely farm of an Arab lies. Some 
outbuildings, and on the other side of the hill thirty 
or forty miserable huts half- buried in the ground, 
inhabited by Berbers, are all we see. The dragoman 
stops the camels before the gate of the farm and 
begins to unpack. We are in Utica. To visit the 
old town we must first make friends with the inhabit- 
ants of the new town, for although there are plenty 
of European travellers, there is no inn of any kind, 
and visitors are compelled to sleep in the open air, 
or under a tent if they have brought one. Provi- 
sions, if a few eggs and the unpalatable bread of the 
Bedouins be excepted, are not to be found for miles 



THE RUINS OF UTICA. 231 

round, and care must be taken to be provided with 
what is necessary. If there were a Utica in Germany 
or England the whole place would be carefully 
hedged in, good hotels and guides would be found, 
the rubbish cleared away — in short, a Utica would 
exist. But here neither these good Bedouins, nor 
even their sheik, the rich and respected Benajet, have 
an idea that Utica ever existed. They only know 
that the place they live in is called Bu-shater ; the 
name of Utica is unknown to them. The scanty 
ruins are unnoticed, and the precincts of the ancient 
town are covered, wherever possible, with waving 
fields, and where sufficient brickwork could be found 
an Arab mausoleum has been built. Just as the 
cross of the saintly Louis is enthroned on the ruins 
of Carthage, so the half- moon is planted on these 
heathen temples. My English companion, Mr. 
Smith, had lived in this place three years ; the rich 
Benajet had leased to him all the land for miles 
round, and Smith made a fortune by the rational 
cultivation of the very fertile soil. 

At the time of my visit Benajet's harem was 
quartered in the farm mentioned above, so that our 
hopes to be hospitably received there were thwarted. 
Eunuchs guarded the farm, which is surrounded by 
walls as if it were a fortress. Fortunately, I had 
brought my tents, which we pitched amongst heaps 
of ruins, and as far as possible from the dwellings of 
the Berbers. 

I was too tired after my seven hours' ride from 
Mater to visit the ruins, or rather the traces of the 
ruins, on the first day. The wives of Benajet had 



232 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

heard meanwhile of our arrival, and as Smith was 
in the habit of visiting there, they sent word by a 
eunuch that a dinner was being prepared for us, 
which was, in fact, sent and put before us on the 
floor ! Though there were no knives or forks, and 
only a big wooden spoon stuck in the sickly sweet 
dish, we ate heartily, the more so as we had only 
tasted chocolate, sheep's milk, cheese, and dates for 
weeks. 

We were still worse off for sleeping ; they had 
sent us covers and pillows ; however, these could not 
silence the howling and screaming of the owls, bats, 
crickets, and hyenas, which are quartered in the ex- 
tensive ruins of Utica ; these dismal noises did not 
cease until the dawn of morning, the time when we 
had to rise in order to begin our wanderings amongst 
the ruins. These are of the greatest interest for the 
archaeologist, but they possess none for the common 
mortal. Of Utica there is nothing left but the 
reservoirs of the aqueduct, completely filled with 
earth ; they have been disinterred by the Mr. Smith 
mentioned above, and are used as — cattle-sheds ! 
On the same hill, a little farther on, the oval of the 
amphitheatre can be plainly seen, with distinct traces 
of the graduated seats, which are partly well pre- 
served. Some years ago subterranean brick -lined 
granaries were discovered, which contained consider- 
able quantities of wheat. To this day the Bedouins 
keep their corn in similar " Silos," called by them 
" Motmur." A small valley divides this hill from 
another which is a little higher, and is, according to 
existing traces, no doubt the spot where the castle 



THE RUINS OF UTICA. 233 

of the town once stood. To-day two small Arab 
Kubbas (mausoleums) stand in its place. Here a 
beautiful view presents itself over the precincts of 
the town, the harbour, the canals, and moats, of all 
of which the outlines can be followed. Even the 
lines of the streets and the ground -plan of the 
buildings are visible ; nothing is wanting but the 
ruins themselves. 

The level seems to have remained the same 
during these thousands of years ; the ruins have not 
disappeared as in Egypt and Asia Minor, through 
being choked up with earth, but on the contrary 
through being carried away. The houses, temples, 
and palaces fell to pieces, and when the Arabs came 
they loaded their camels with the splendid building 
stones, and took them to the coast to build the 
Tunis of to-day, Porto Farina, Mater, and other 
Arab towns. One solitary arch is left in the midst 
of three or four pillars in a critical condition ; they 
are in the truest sense of the word the only stones 
of Utica left resting one upon another. Not far off, 
a few palms shade a warm spring which issues from 
the ground, and in the water of which innumerable 
tortoises swarm ; these are considered holy by the 
Arabs, and are fed by them ; the latter also attribute 
a great healing power to the water itself. Farther 
on, the country is desolate — a green swamp, which 
extends to the inland sea of Porto Farina, whose 
white walls are seen from a distance. Utica has paid 
dearly for the betrayal of her sister- town Carthage. 
The " Nunquam perierunt ruinae " of Carthage has, 
as Maltzan says, been realised in the case of Utica. 



234 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER V. 

BISERTA AND ITS LAKE DISTRICT. 

It is well known that the French have always felt 
the want of a good harbour in Algiers ; the coasts 
are steep and rocky, and offer scarcely any places 
for anchorage. Tunis, on the other hand, might 
be rich in good harbours. Biserta, Porto Farina, 
and Goletta could easily be made into such. No 
doubt it will be one of the first tasks of the 
French to make these useless harbours accessible 
to their merchant ships and men-of-war, and so 
obtain the principal object of their Tunisian Ex- 
pedition. 

Biserta "especially could with very little trouble 
be made into one of the largest and safest harbours 
of the Mediterranean. While town and harbour 
under the name of Hippozarytus were of great 
importance in olden times, and were raised under 
Caesar even to a " Colonia," their decline commenced 
with the Hegira and the Moorish conquest, and now 
scarcely a few dozens of fishing -boats enter this 
harbour during the year. But the French will turn 
it into an important commercial port soon enough, 



BISERTA AND ITS LAKE DISTRICT. 235 

and make it, if other powers do not object, a Toulon 
of the African north coast. 

Biserta is consequently of great future significance, 
though while possessed by the Tunisians it was more 
than harmless. I visited it and the surrounding sea 
district last year, starting from Mater, from which it 
is six hours' distant. All the country in this north- 
east corner of Tunis is exceedingly fertile and has 
plenty of water, so that the harvest is plentiful even 
in years of scarcity. The gently rising mountain- 
chains and the groups of hills of this district are 
covered with olive and tobacco plantations, and the 
tobacco planted here by ignorant Arabs is, according 
to competent judges, only surpassed by the Cuba 
plant. They have also got here the only plantations 
of almonds, figs, oranges, and lemons, and at the 
time of the war of slaves they cultivated cotton with 
great success. 

Biserta lies in the midst of the deep bay of the same 
name, at the mouth of a canal which connects the 
sea with a large inland lake encircled by mountains. 
This lake possesses, according to my own sound- 
ings, a depth of some six or seven fathoms, and has 
neither sandbanks, cliffs, nor shoals, and there is no 
doubt a harbour could be built here large enough to 
receive all the Mediterranean fleet. The lake is about 
eight English miles long. The canal which unites 
the lake, called Tindsha Bensert by the Arabs (the 
Hipponitis Lacus of the ancients), with the sea, gets 
narrower when it approaches the latter, but offers a 
safe and secure entrance even for the largest men-of- 
war. To-day, because of the efflux of the sweet- 



*36 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

water lake, which also discharges here, it is filled 
with sand, and only one fathom deep, but it could 
easily and with little cost be deepened to three or 
four fathoms. The canal throughout its whole 
length between Biserta and the inland lake — about 
twelve English miles — has an average depth of from 
five to seven fathoms, without any shallow places. 
Immediately above the town this canal, which up 
to here is only about two English miles in width, 
changes into a lake five miles broad, which with a 
depth of four fathoms would be sufficient for all 
ships entering Biserta. 

It will be seen, therefore, that the natural condi- 
tions for the foundation of a large harbour are not 
wanting. If Biserta is deserted and poor it has to 
thank Islamitic rule for it. The lethargy of the 
inhabitants, the insecurity of the neighbourhood, the 
weakness of the Government, and the queer state of 
affairs prevailing here for centuries, have made of 
Biserta that heap of ruins which it is to-day. 

The town is situated on both sides of the canal, 
and also on an isle in the midst of the latter connected 
with the mainland by bridges, and is surrounded with 
high crenellated walls. Near the town on the highest 
mountain, which rises direct from the sea, stands an 
old decayed tower, which formerly belonged to the 
fortifications. The town contains two old prison- 
fortresses in ruins, the Kasba and the Kossaiba (little 
Kasba) ; the former was once a small town itself, 
but only its ruins remain now. The narrow streets 
of Biserta are dirty and lined by miserable houses ; 
the bazaar streets are covered, and many passages 



BISERTA AND ITS LAKE DISTRICT. 237 

regularly arched in, so that the inner town contrasts 
strangely in its darkness with the other parts washed 
by the canal, and beaming in the bright sunshine. 
Four gates lead into the town. According to the old 
Moorish style each house surrounds a square yard, 
into which the rooms open. 

There are about 5000 inhabitants, most of them 
Moors, who, driven away from Andalusia, came to 
settle here, and are the wealthiest amongst the 
inhabitants. They have their own quarter, which to 
this day is called "Humt el Andalus." Amongst the 
5000 inhabitants there are 500 Jews, and scarcely 
100 Europeans, most of them Italians and Maltese, 
who live by fishing, or by exporting the tropical fruit 
and tobacco cultivated here. There is scarcely any 
navigation. Twelve or fourteen boats belonging to 
Italian seamen go out coral -fishing, otherwise the 
harbour is only visited by Tunisian, Algerian, and 
Sicilian small craft. Communication with the capital 
is established daily by a caravan of two or three 
camels, which principally takes fresh sea-fish to Tunis, 
and forwards letters. Scarcely anything else but 
the common necessaries of life are carried by these 
caravans. 

The second lake, mentioned above, is called 
Tindsha Dshkul, Sweet-water Lake, and is partly a 
swamp. In its midst rises the rocky island Dshebel 
Dshkul, 2000 feet high. The lake is very rich in 
fish, and from it is derived an income of several 
hundred thousand francs per annum. 



a 3 8 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FROM TUNIS TO KERWAN. 

Kerwan, to the west of Susa, is situated on the large 
inland lake Sebcha Sidi el Hani, and is not only the 
holiest town of Tunis, but of all Mohammedan Africa, 
one of the " four gates of paradise " as the Arabs say. 
Built about some twenty years after the commence- 
ment of the Hegira, it is at the same time one of the 
oldest towns of the whole East, the seat of a famous 
high school of the Koran, and a place much frequented 
by pilgrims, for it contains in its principal mosque 
one of the holiest relics, namely, the Beard of the 
Prophet, by which the Arabs are so fond of swearing. 

Most travellers who wish to reach Kerwan take 
the route along the sea-coast to Susa, and from there 
across the country westward, because most antiquities 
are to be found there. But taking the straight way 
southwards from Tunis to Kerwan, two famous places 
are passed, Zaghuan and Dshugar, built at the sources 
of the old Carthaginian aqueduct. And a good deal 
is seen of the country besides. 

The first half of the way between Tunis and 
Zaghuan is passable by carriages ; it is true now and 



FROM TUNIS TO KERWAN. 239 

then a bridge is wanted, and we often were on the 
point of having an involuntary bath ; the way also leads 
over rocks, and we were constantly afraid of having 
the axle of our carriage broken ; but still, travelling by 
carriage was preferable on so long a journey to riding 
on horseback or on a camel, for it was the beginning 
of May and the sun was scorching. 

Our road lay first through rich cornfields, where 
the ears already showed the golden colour of ripeness ; 
every stalk carried an ear of twenty, thirty, and even 
fifty grains, a proof of the inexhaustible fertility of 
the soil. The olives in the extensive plantations 
stood in full bloom. We then passed gentle slopes, 
from the top of which we had a magnificent view of 
Tunis, till we reached the dried-up marsh of Sebcha 
el Sedshum, with innumerable tortoises crawling about 
in the mud. In the olive-trees we often saw the 
funny little chameleons which are so numerous in 
Tunis. At an hour and a half's distance from town 
we came to the colossal ruins of the castle once 
owned by Achmet Bey, who had it built some thirty 
years ago at the cost of about ten millions of francs. 
To-day it is one of the largest and saddest ruins I 
ever saw. What a strange custom that in this 
country the Regent is not allowed to live in the 
house of his predecessor ! Besides the proper palace, 
now a heap of marble and alabaster blocks, Moham- 
media shows other still greater ruins of barracks and 
palaces. The splendid gardens once surrounding 
this princely residence have run wild. Aloes and 
agaves with their palm-like stalks, bushes of cactuses, 
palms, orange, and fig trees, all covered with thick 



24Q TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

weeds and vines, show the fertility of the soil ; 
nevertheless, there is in the whole neighbourhood 
neither field nor plantation. Thirty years ago, the 
liveliest place, the grandest and richest palace of the 
Regency, a miserable family of nomads live to-day in 
its ruins. And the whole country as far as Zaghuan 
presents the same desolate aspect — half steppe, half 
desert ; it is entirely uninhabited. The colossal ruins 
of the old Carthaginian aqueduct accompany us 
nearly all the way to Zaghuan, sometimes resting on 
the stone pillars 120 feet high, sometimes cutting 
deep into the mountains. Near the little river Oned 
Meliana are the highest of these pillars. Erected 
from enormous stones, they rise to immense heights, 
and are connected by arches of 20 feet span. Some 
are of cement only faced with stone, probably those 
which the Byzantines built in place of others 
destroyed by the wars. These monuments of 
ancient Roman architecture are in many places 
intact. Side by side with these runs the new 
aqueduct, built under the government of the present 
Bey, a work which cost the country 1 3,000,000 
francs, bu" is not worth the money. A modern 
bridge constructed with the stones of the Roman 
aqueduct crosses the Meliana river. We had now 
passed the wide valley, and gone up those rocky 
hills again which separate it from the valley of 
Zaghuan. On these hills the scanty ruins of the 
ancient Roman town of Udina are to be found. 
Here we saw for the first time the Dshebel Zaghuan 
in all its glory ; a gray mass of rock about 
4000 feet high, without any vegetation, its massive 



FROM TUNIS TO KERWAN. 241 

top surrounded by clouds. It forms the southern 
border of one of the most charming valleys of the 
Regency, comparable to an oasis. Here we find for 
the first time the palm-tree, so rare in Northern 
Tunis, in large quantities ; we see the most beautiful 
orange and fig trees ; the carob-tree, cactuses, laurels, 
and myrtle grow here to an enormous height, forming 
a dense forest from which emerge the snow-white 
houses of Dshebel Zaghuan. 

An Amr-Bey, which we presented, opened to us 
the gates of the Dar-el-Bey, which looked quite stately 
from a distance, but turned out to be a miserable, 
decayed building without furniture, where we had to 
lie on wooden benches, without finding sleep, for 
Tunis counts more hopping inhabitants than walking 
ones, and they are a perfect plague to the Europeans. 
Fortunately it was not warm enough for the scorpions, 
for Zaghuan has the reputation of breeding these 
disgusting animals in enormous quantities, which 
increase as you go farther south. 

At the old Roman archway which stands at the 
entrance of the village, the Chalifa and the notabilities 
received us. I handed my Amr-Bey, but the good 
man being unable to read, he had to pass it on to his 
clerk to find out what it contained. He was much 
pleased when we declared ourselves willing to pay for 
his hospitality, and he gave orders at once to have a 
lamb killed, which was put before us a few hours 
later on large dishes in the most varied shapes and 
forms, of course without knives and forks. The 
national dish of the Tunisians, the kuskussu, formed 
the piece de resistance of this Lucullian meal. Its 

R 



242 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

preparation, not very appetising, will be described 
below, We were obliged to eat whether we liked it 
or not, for our good hostess of the hotel in Tunis had 
forgotten to put provisions and wine into our carriage. 
We had already made this unpleasant discovery half 
way, in the midst of the desert. When we were 
ready for lunch, we unpacked our baskets with great 
expectations, and found on the top a heap of little 
loaves, which we distributed at once amongst the 
servants and coachmen, reserving for ourselves the 
better things which were to come. To our great 
astonishment, however, we found napkins, knives 
and forks, plates, pepper and salt, but nothing else. 
The chickens, eggs, pigeons, and legs of mutton had 
remained in Tunis. We had the greatest difficulty 
to induce the servants to return some of the bread 
It can therefore be easily imagined how ravenously 
we attacked the oily dishes of the Bedouins in the 
palace of Zaghuan. But scarcely had we finished 
our repast when a servant from the hotel arrived 
with the forgotten dainties, laden on a couple of 
donkeys. Though too late for that day they did 
good service afterwards. 

Zaghuan is a miserable little place : it is built 
on the ruins of a Roman settlement, whose aqueduct 
is still used by the inhabitants. It seems that this 
water is well adapted for dyeing purposes, as the 
knitted sheshia (fez) of Tunis are sent hither to be 
dyed red. This is the only industry of the place, 
which, however, does not seem very lucrative, for I 
never saw a poorer or more wretched place. 

Our principal excursion was to the famous sources 



FROM TUNIS TO KERWAN. 243 

at the Dshebel Zaghuan, which supplied Carthage 
with water, and still does the same for Tunis. The 
clear water comes out of the mountain in great 
quantities, and is surrounded by the ruins of a 
grand Roman temple ; to our disappointment, 
however, a high wall had been erected all round, 
so that we had to climb up a neighbouring rock in 
order to be able to admire the beautiful arcades and 
colonnades. 

From Zaghuan to the holy town of Kenyan the 
road leads through the district of the powerful 
Bedouin tribe of the Dsftellas, across the ruins of 
the Roman Zaccara, where there is now a miser- 
able little village. The distance from the Zaghuan 
sources to Carthage and to Tunis is over a hundred 
miles : this will give an idea of the magnitude of 
the aqueduct. 



244 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE HOLY TOWN OF KERWAN. 

As already mentioned, Kerwan is the seat of the 
famous " High School of Africa," where the greatest 
savants and Koran teachers instruct. This, together 
with the tombs of many saints, — amongst them being 
that of Sidi Olba, the friend and companion in arms 
of the Prophet, and the Mosque Sidi el Owaib, with 
the Beard of the Prophet, — make Kerwan holy to the 
Arabs, and constitutes it the Mecca of the African 
Orient Rich merchants from Morocco, Tunis, Cairo, 
and Tripoli retire to Kerwan when they get old, to 
lead a contemplative life. They leave their fortunes, 
as a rule, .to mosques and religious foundations, 
which makes Kerwan one of the richest towns of 
the East. An infidel, whether Jew or Christian, is 
not allowed under any circumstances to enter this 
town, which is strongly walled in ; and the fanaticism 
of the populace goes so far, that even the highest 
and most influential travellers can enter only in 
disguise, and furnished by an official order from the 
Bey to the Caid of the town. If we are not mis- 
taken, Archduke Rainer of Austria had to make use 



THE HOLY TOWN OF KERWAN. 245 

of similar means some years ago, and when the 
famous traveller Archduke Louis Salvator, during 
his yachting expedition down the Syrta in 1876, 
arrived at Susa and asked the Bey for an order to 
visit Kerwan, the Bey had to refuse, because he 
could not take the responsibility. But the Arch- 
duke entered the town all the same, though with a 
strong escort of soldiers and policemen. During the 
last years the Bey has been more and more under 
the influence of the Consuls, who often enough com- 
pelled him to give them orders for their proUges to 
visit the place. 

With each European who visited the holy town 
in this way under the Bey's protection, the authority 
of the latter decreased, for in acting thus he breaks 
the Mohammedan law. Thanks to strong escorts, 
the lives of the travellers were protected, but there 
was no lack of stone-throwing, curses, and attacks. 
Even the Archduke Louis Salvator was treated in 
the same way. 

The Tunisians believe that these increasing visits 
are the fault of Mohamed es Sadock, and it is no 
wonder that the latest rising, directed originally 
against the French, turned finally against the Bey. 
Foreign saints from Tripoli and Algiers stir their 
fanaticism, and the excited Bedouins and inhabitants 
of the towns are told incredible stories of the 
wonderful victories of the Arabs over the French in 
Algiers, and of the coming help from the Sultan, so 
that it is not surprising if the movement spreads 
more and more. 

Kerwan is not only one of the holiest but also 



846 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

one of the oldest towns of Mohammedan Africa, foi 
its foundation dates from the year 34 of the Hegira. 
Destroyed repeatedly by the Berbers and rebuilt by 
the Arabs, it was the capital of the great Chalifate 
of Kerwan when Islamism was in its flower, and 
was even for a long time the chief town of the whole 
Machreb. But its population was purely Arabic, 
religious, and devoted to the followers of the Prophet, 
hence its steady resistance to the attempts of the 
mighty ones to free it from the suzerainty of Mecca. 
These latter then chose other residences, and with 
the departure of the Court disappeared much of the 
glory and proverbial splendour of Kerwan, so often 
described by Ibn Kaldim and other Arab authors. 
The holy character of the town, however, has been 
preserved, and her complete exclusiveness against all 
foreign influences, and the conservative fanatical 
element which she harbours, did not permit her to 
alter her aspect or her architecture. With the 
exception of one or two towns in Morocco, there is 
no town in the whole Machreb which has preserved 
the Moorish style as well as Kerwan. Her mosques, 
palaces, and minarets nearly all date from the 
glorious Moorish period, and their interior is said to 
be magnificent. As to this latter statement, we 
have to be satisfied with rumours, for the foot of a 
Christian has not entered any of her mosques or 
minarets since Kerwan first existed. 

As a rule, travellers approach Kerwan from Susa, 
which is only one day's journey from it. Already 
from a distance her numerous minarets and domes, 
the palm-trees towering over the white houses, and 



THE HOL Y TO WN OF KER WAN. 247 

*> ' — ■--■■ ' ■ ■ — ■' — — ■ ■ — ■■■■ — ■- ■ 

the high palaces and mosques make a wonderful 
impression. Unlike most other Arabic towns of the 
Machreb, Kerwan is situated in a plain ; no Kasba 
overlooks the town as in Tunis, Susa, Sfax, and 
others. High walls enclose this sea of houses from 
all sides, and would enable her if necessary to offer 
considerable resistance. The town is, moreover, 
defended by some batteries of iron guns, though 
they have certainly not been in use since the time 
of the Turks, neither are the few hundred men 
which form the garrison, of much use. The safety 
of Kerwan lies in her holiness, and in the fanaticism 
of her inhabitants, who no doubt would carry on a 
struggle to the utmost. 

Through whichever gate the town is entered, 
fonduks are met with, in which the caravans and 
pilgrims are quartered, presenting a lively picture 
all the year round. The more you penetrate into 
the town, which contains 30,000 inhabitants, the 
more do the streets improve : they get broader and 
cleaner, and the buildings higher and statelier. 
Kerwan is one of the few towns in the East which 
can be traversed without dirtying one's shoes. No- 
where are the heaps of dirt and rubbish seen here, 
nor the ruins and puddles so peculiar to the Orient. 
Almost every street contains a mosque or the tomb 
of a saint, a pious foundation or a Koran school, the 
bazaar streets alone excepted. 

Unfortunately all the buildings but the mosques 
are constructed of brick-clay, which is not durable 
enough to preserve the Moorish stucco ornamenting 
a great many houses. These are additionally spoiled 



248 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

by whitewash covering everything with white colour 
The mosques, however, are nearly all built of marble 
and other stones, most of them taken from the 
Roman ruins. Almost in every wall, and in every one 
of the many minarets rising high and built in the 
Giralda style, fragments of Roman inscriptions and 
Roman architecture are found. The original con- 
structors seem to have taken special pleasure in the 
marble columns with ancient Roman capitals, and 
whether of heathen or Christian origin, they have 
been used for the mosques. The innumerable domes 
of Kerwan are nearly all low, and without those 
exquisite plaster ornaments which are seen on the 
tombs of the Chalifs in Cairo. Their only decoration 
consists of vertical ribs converging towards the top, 
so that they are not unlike the knob of a keyless 
watch. More beautiful are the square minarets 
mounted with small towers. Most of the mosques 
bear inscriptions in Rufic letters, a proof of their 
great age. 

A great many rumours are afloat about the 
magnificent ornamentation of the interiors of these 
mosques. . It is certain that no Christian ever en- 
tered any of them. The most important mosque is 
of course the Dshama Sidi es Sahib, which contains 
the Beard of the Prophet, and which was thoroughly 
restored last in the year 820, showing a most ven- 
erable age. The Beard of the Prophet is not visible, 
but is said to be immured in the Kibla. Several 
hundred marble columns adorn the interior of this 
mosque. 

The high school of the Koran is situated next tci 



THE HOL Y TO WN OF KER WAN. 249 

the Dshama Sidi Ab del Kader el Dshilani, so called 
in honour of the great saint of Bagdad, who is at the 
same time the patron saint of the Machreb. Kerwan 
is the seat of Mohammedan learning ; it possesses 
a very valuable library of written books, and there 
are still several hundred learned men occupied 
copying the Koran. The orthodox Mussulman 
hates the printed Koran which Europe manufactures, 
and must have a written one if the thick book were 
to cost him hundreds of piastres, and those who 
know its compass can form an idea of the time this 
must take to make. Kerwan is one of those towns 
which produces these written Korans. 

Besides its holiness, Kerwan also boasts of many 
industries, and extensive bazaars, in which magni- 
ficent carpets, woollen covers, beautiful silks, and 
perfumed essences are sold. The carpets of Kerwan 
are as famous throughout the Machreb as those of 
Persia. The dyed leather of Kerwan competes in 
quality and value with that of Morocco, and their 
saddlery and shoes are famous amongst the Bedouin 
tribes, and even with the Tuaregs. The town is, at 
the same time, the most important mart for provi- 
sions and cattle in the Regency, so that her inhabit- 
ants derive also a large income from this. 



250 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BEDOUINS. 

THOUGH European civilisation can boast of consider- 
able success in the North of Africa, it is limited to 
the towns and their Moorish inhabitants. The light 
of Christendom penetrated in these directions, and 
brought culture in its train ; against the bulwarks 
of Islam alone all attempts were in vain. Though 
in the immediate neighbourhood of Europe, Africa 
remained true to the traditions of that faith whose 
Rome is Mecca, and whose prophet is Mohammed. 
Many times in the course of centuries, Europe had 
got a firm footing on the coasts of that continent, 
but, strange to say, it was always the populace of 
those seemingly uninhabitable deserts which con- 
quered mighty Europe. Three Carthages were built 
and destroyed. Large provinces submitted to 
European culture, and were reconquered by Islam. 
Small Mohammedan states like Tunis held in their 
hands the trade and navigation of the first powers, 
and ruled the Mediterranean absolutely. They pos- 
sessed great colonies in Europe, and most of the 
maritime countries were subject to them. To this 



THE BEDOUINS. 251 

day a piece of Europe is in the hands of Islam ; and 
if France, on the other hand, conquered Algiers, this 
has, until now, been a loss to her, and the pos- 
session has to be defended by armies and cannon. 
The Arab will yield and die, but he will not easily 
submit to civilisation. 

The Bedouins are a proof of this. The great 
wars and battles took place on the frontiers of their 
desert. They themselves took part in them ; and in 
the neighbouring Algiers they have continued to 
exist under military discipline and guardianship these 
fifty years. They come in constant contact with 
Europeans, but, contrary to other nomadic tribes, 
they neither adopt the habits, the products, nor the 
language of their conquerors ; they are to this day 
fanatical followers of their Islamitic traditions, and 
despise the Christian and his religion. Their religion 
also promises them heaven. They enjoy liberty, this 
gift from God, beyond measure. They have their 
wife, their horse, their subsistence, and a territory, 
as large as Europe, over which they are absolute 
rulers. 

They are not to be envied from our point of 
view. Though we visit them, and their mode of 
living interests us for some days or weeks, no 
European would like to change with them. But 
they avenge themselves, and pity us in the same 
way as we pity them. The dwellings of the Bedouins 
are where the mountains of Northern Africa flatten 
towards the desert, near the rivers and in the steppes. 
They are never alone. They wander about with 
their families and their tribes, and pitch their tents 



252 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

in different places. The traveller, on leaving the 
coast of the Mediterranean and roaming through 
Barbary south of the mountains, meets them every- 
where. They do not salute travellers, but neither 
will they hurt them except they penetrate to the 
borders of Tripoli into the deserts, or under extra- 
ordinary circumstances — during war, for instance. 
They may be compared to wandering peasants who 
understand the use of arms. If they are asked 
where they are going, they shrug their shoulders, 
and say, "Whither it pleases God to direct us!" 
Though a good deal is known about them, much of 
their way of thinking, their family life, and traditions 
are wrapt in mystery. The reports of travellers are 
often contradictory. Some think them garrulous, 
others reticent, good-natured and noble, cunning or 
superficial. 

I have been living with them some weeks in 
their tents. I accompanied them in their wander- 
ings, attended their festivals, saw their work and 
their family life, and will try to describe their 
peculiarities. 

Though nomads in the widest sense of the word, 
they have a certain organisation in Tunis and 
Algiers. Their " Douars " or villages consist of a 
number of tents whose inhabitants are generally 
subject to the oldest and richest Bedouins. Several 
Douars, sometimes many miles distant from each 
other, form a Ferka (section), which is ruled by a 
Sheik. Every Bedouin tribe, of which there are a 
great many, has, according to its size, several Ferkas, 
which together are subject to a common head — the 



THE BEDOUINS. 253 

Caid. This division goes still further in Algiers, 
where several tribes unite to a " great caidate " or 
" Aghalik," over which presides a Caid el Caid, or 
Caid of Caids, or Agha. Moreover, a Caid is 
appointed for every tribe, who has to sit as judge, 
and to marry and divorce parties. These magistrates 
receive in Algiers fixed salaries from the French 
Government, which range from 1500 to 12,000 
francs. In Tunis, where no officials get salaries, 
with the exception of the Ministers, the Caids, and 
Chalifs, or rather their representatives, make them- 
selves paid by levying taxes from the Bedouins, 
which their " Hamba," or policemen, collect for them. 
In Algiers the Bedouin chiefs have to submit 
to the watchful control of the French military 
authorities, and they have to be satisfied with 
what they get. In Tunis, on the other hand, they 
possess the utmost arbitrary power, which they 
abuse thoroughly. They are obliged to collect the 
taxes for the Government, which amount to 42 
piastres (£1) per head, and which must be paid, or 
their Caids and Sheiks confiscate cattle or goods. 
They have also to pay for the trouble of collecting, 
as the Government does not pay its officials. Besides 
all this, the Bedouin has also to pay taxes for every 
business transaction, for every head of cattle in his 
possession, and for every acre of land, so that it is 
scarcely possible for him to save much. Some of 
the tribes have thoroughly renounced the authority 
of the Bey, and live quite independently of the 
Regency in those southern parts which belong 
properly to the Sahara ; they pay no taxes what- 



254 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

ever, and live in constant strife with the loyal tribes 
and Tunisian authorities. 

These are principally the Worchama, the Udena, 
and other powerful and warlike tribes mentioned 
further on. 

These taxes are the only tie which unites the 
Bedouins with the capital and Government ; they 
otherwise enjoy perfect freedom all over the country 
— choose their habitations wherever they wish, and 
do what they like. Their dwelling-places, consisting 
sometimes of hundreds of small black tents pitched 
together, are often met with by the traveller. 
Though the soil is very fertile in these parts of 
the Sahel, it cannot be cultivated continuously 
because of the dearth of water. Only three months 
are required to ripen corn from the time of sowing. 
The harvests, considerable notwithstanding all dis- 
advantages, are over in April or May, and the 
Bedouin then wanders with his tribe or Douar to 
another district to cultivate another piece of primitive 
soil. 

I made my first acquaintance with the Bedouins 
in the Tunisian desert on the way to Kerwan. It 
was night, and I had joined a caravan which was 
going the same way. The men, wrapt in their 
white bornouses, sat on camels or small donkeys, 
carrying their flintstone guns across their shoulders. 
The women trudged barefoot by their side in the 
sand without appearing to mind this want of 
gallantry on the part of their husbands. In this 
country one is often inclined to take the men to be 
the weaker sex. We had marched silently for 



THE BEDOUINS. 255 

many miles across desolate tracts of desert without 
meeting with any Bedouin encampment, and I 
proposed repeatedly to stop and rest for the night ; 
but our " Chrebir," the old chief of the caravan, knew 
his way. He knew we should not be long before 
finding a Douar, and he was not mistaken. Towards 
midnight we heard the barking of dogs, and soon 
after we saw the low black tents in the same 
direction, rising above the light desert plain like 
mole-hills. These Bedouin dogs, though despised 
and considered unclean, are as fanatical Moham- 
medans as their masters — they scent a Christian at 
a great distance, and can only be driven back by 
heavy blows. Whoever travels in those parts must 
be provided with a good whip besides a gun. Every 
Douar is watched by a great number of dogs, which 
are constantly quarrelling with each other ; but on 
being invaded by a wild animal or visited by a 
Christian they unite against him at once. At last 
we reached the Douar, where the Sheik awaited us 
quite dressed. 

"Ya mul el chreima, dif Chrebbi!" — "We are 
the guests of God, Master !" our Chrebir said to 
him. " Morhaba bich !" — "Be welcome," answered 
the Sheik, driving his wives out of the tent at once to 
light a fire and to take the saddles off our horses 
and camels. Neither men nor women undress at 
night, so that their toilet is soon finished. After a 
little while, dishes with fuming kuskussu were put 
before us, and a few empty tents prepared. The 
sun had scarcely risen next morning when our 
animals were ready for starting again, and the 



256 TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Chrebir drove me from my couch. " Everything is 
ready, Arfi," he said. With a hurried good-bye 
we left the Douar, the Sheik refusing the silver 
piece I offered him as a gratuity. " This is not 
usual with us," explained the leader of the caravan ; 
" God will repay it him, sir !" 

A greater hospitality than that of the Bedouins 
can scarcely be imagined. Though lessened lately 
by the increase of European travellers, the same 
cordiality exists towards their own tribes. I have 
experienced it repeatedly while travelling here. 
There was only one exception to this, when once on 
my arrival a great number of savage dogs jumped 
at me and threatened to tear me to pieces, and a 
Bedouin sitting quietly before his tent without 
driving them away ; but scarcely was this noticed 
by two other Bedouins of the Douar, when they ran 
after the dogs with cudgels and drove them away, 
all the time abusing their comrade. Only on leaving 
did I hear that this latter had been compelled by 
the whole Douar to provide all meals for myself and 
my companions. However, they did not always refuse 
the gratuities I offered them, and in the towns and 
larger places of the Oases this hospitality and defer- 
ence is more on their tongues than in their hearts. 
The Arabs there boast a good deal, and often 
take God's name in vain, but they keep their hands 
on their pockets, and so have damaged the reputation 
of their proverbial hospitality. But the Bedouins of 
the desert keep to their ancient traditions. 

Even a stranger can at once distinguish the 
Bedouins from the Arabs of the towns, though they 



THE BEDOUINS. 257 

are dressed exactly alike. The nomad is tall, robust, 
and fine, his face is sunburnt, and his eye frank and 
fiery. The Bedouin takes long strides and walks 
quickly, generally supporting himself by a long 
carved staff, knob downwards. The Arab of the 
towns, on the other hand, makes short steps and 
walks very slowly. The Bedouin is sober, abstemious, 
and persevering, but he dislikes work. He is almost 
exclusively a shepherd. The nomads of the Northern 
Sahara cultivate a small tract of land, but they do 
not work seriously, and as a rule hire a few people 
from town to look after their fields. His habitation 
is more than modest. Let us look at his tent. His 
wife has plaited the tent-cover of black camel-hair. 
A vertical pole supports the tent in the centre, while 
a few camel bones stuck in the ground serve as tent- 
pegs. In front the cover hangs down so that one 
must stoop low to enter. But even inside, it is 
difficult to stand upright. The prop in the centre 
divides the reception-room and the harem ; that is 
to say, one half belongs to the husband, the other 
to wife and children, and no man is allowed to enter 
the latter except the lord and master. A cover of 
camel's - hair forms the dividing screen, while on the 
floor between the two parts, the effects of the little 
household are heaped up, as, for instance, superfluous 
covers, skins, and garments, etc. Over the bare floor 
a mat of " Haifa " (esparto grass) is spread, the 
hiding-place of innumerable fleas — the faithful and 
infallible companions of the Bedouins. The mat 
is never trod upon by shoes or slippers, as these 
have always to be left outside the tent. This, as 

S 



258" TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

well as spare mats, carpets, and other articles, the 
Bedouin fastens carefully by means of iron rings to 
his tent-pole, so that they should not be stolen at 
night. In a corner of the tent the fuel is heaped 
up — sheep and camel dung only, for wood is not 
to be found in the desert. When travelling, the 
Bedouin women carefully pick up every dry branch 
of rosemary or of the olive-tree. In the part belong- 
ing to the man, the furniture is completed by 
saddle and harness if he has a horse, and by his 
arms, generally old flintstone guns and pistols. The 
Bedouin knows neither bed nor chair. The same 
mat on which he sits with crossed legs during his 
leisure hours in the day serves him as bed. He 
wraps himself in his bornous, puts a hide under his 
head, and sleeps soundly. They feel so uncomfort- 
able on a chair that they prefer to sit on the floor 
when th?y appear in European houses. 

So much for their miserable household. Their 
dress is equally poor. A long, coarse linen shirt, 
wide trousers reaching down to their knees, where 
they are gathered in, a waistcoat, sometimes em- 
broidered or ornamented with silver buttons, compose 
their dress, over which they throw the indispensable 
bornous. An old fez, with a small tail instead of 
the blue tassel, covers the back of their head, and 
over it the white turban is wound. They generally 
draw the hood of the bornous over it all, be it ever 
so hot, and crown the whole with a straw hat of 
immense size with a broad brim. Rich Bedouins 
wear short stockings reaching to the middle of the 
calf. Their feet are covered by light slippers of 



THE BEDOUINS. 259 



leather or felt, which the rider replaces by top-boots 
of red or yellow Morocco. Their handkerchief, if 
they have one, hangs by a corner on the outside of 
their bornous. Their head is entirely shaved, with 
the exception of a tuft of hair left on the top which 
is hidden under the fez. But as they never take off 
their head -covering under any circumstances, this 
baldness never shows. 

It is a mistaken notion to think that the nomadic 
Bedouins smoke much. They, as well as the Arabs 
in small towns, smoke rarely, and when they do 
they are satisfied with a very small quantity of 
tobacco, which they smoke in hollow sheep's ribs — 
an enjoyment which we do not envy them. More 
frequently they take to the intoxicating Takruri 
(wild hemp), which, when dry, is smoked like opium. 
Their most general vice amongst men and women is 
— taking snuff. Almost every woman, when she 
gets old, possesses her snuff-box, and as soon as I 
gave them any money they bought snuff. Chewing 
is, on account of the dearth of water in the desert, 
very general. They do not chew tobacco, but a sort 
of lozenge, made of resin, which, after having been 
chewed for long gets tough like indiarubber, and 
keeps the mouth constantly moist. 

The Bedouins, like all the other nomads through- 
out the whole Machreb, men as well as women, 
tattoo themselves. The men cover their arms and 
calves with the funniest devices, the women in 
addition tattoo face, neck, and chest. Shoes and 
gloves seem so strange to these Bedouin women, 
that I have been asked why my hand; are so black. 



26o TUNIS : THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

I was riding, and wore black kid gloves, which the 
people believed to be tattooed hands. Besides a 
little square which the women have tattooed on each 
cheek, they also have a cross between the eyebrows, 
which was always a puzzle to me. At last, while 
turning over the leaves of a history of Carthage, I 
found that those natives who were converted to 
Christianity were exempt from certain taxes. As a 
mark of distinction they had to wear a small cross, 
which custom had probably been preserved through 
centuries, down to the time of Islam, whereas its 
Christian origin has been forgotten. 

Tattooing proves the great superstition of the 
Bedouins, which they share with all peoples of low 
culture. Their great fear is the evil eye — the " mal 
ochio" of the Italians. If, for instance, they have 
succeeded in tattooing a pretty design, they at once 
add to it two tiny squares with a cross above as a 
sort of spell, to prevent the design from disappearing 
again ! The number " five " (chamsa) must never 
be pronounced in their presence, and their children 
never be inquired after, without adding the words 
" God bless them," or " God be with them." It may 
seem incredible, but it is true all the same, that the 
spittle is considered to this day, just as it was in 
Biblical times, a magical remedy, and I have been 
told by many that you cannot please a Bedouin 
father more than by spitting into his children's 
faces. Other travellers, as Playfair, Lubomirsky, 
etc., mention this circumstance repeatedly. I need 
not say that I have never made use of this means of 
making myself agreeable. 



THE BEDOUINS. 261 

Every Bedouin — man, woman, and child — wears, 
either round the neck or on the arms, a number of 
" charms," such as a porcupine's hand -shaped paw ; 
for the hand is, according to their ideas, the most 
effective talisman against the "evil eye." Even 
horses and geese have these " charms " hung round 
their necks, attached with cords, and one often meets 
horses entirely covered with these decorations. If 
anybody leaves a Bedouin family, water is poured 
out after him when he leaves the tent, and some- 
times they sprinkle black coffee on the hoofs of 
the horses. All this will show how much the 
Bedouins resemble the Indians in their mental and 
social life. 

But in regard to religion, hospitality, and polite- 
ness, they stand high above the red-skinned nomads 
of the far West, and are altogether above them in 
respect to the degree of culture. Their greetings, 
for instance, testify to a fear of God as well as to 
politeness. If people of equal social position meet, 
they kiss each other on the shoulder while uttering 
all kinds of unctuous sentences. Inferior people 
kiss their betters a little lower on the chest. If the 
difference is still greater they kiss the hands or 
sleeves of the one above them, and put their fore- 
head several times on the place kissed. If they 
are riding, they dismount if a Caid or Sheik should 
pass them, and bow standing. People of the lower 
orders greet each other by touching their mouth with 
their own fingers, after having touched each other's 
hands. It is scarcely necessary to mention that 
these salutations, where kissing is so prominent, are 



262 TUNIS ; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

only meant for men ; women are merely saluted by 
words. 

Whatever the Bedouins do is done in the name 
of God ; scarcely a question is answered, scarcely 
an act is perpetrated, without the exclamation of " El 
Hamdullah !" (" God be praised !"). A greater piety, 
which also manifests itself on occasions which we 
Europeans like to keep secret, can scarcely be 
imagined. The number of prayers ordered by 
Mohammed to the faithful is five daily, with as 
many ablutions before each prayer. But as water 
is scarce in the desert, prayers would be very rare 
if the Koran did not permit the prayers to be 
reserved for a fitting time, provided the prescribed 
number be made up. 

The estimates of the Government as well as the 
assertions of travellers vary very much as to the 
number and strength of the Bedouin tribes in Tunis. 
Not only is the taking of a correct census here and 
in all Mohammedan countries out of the question, 
because of the absolute exclusiveness and invisibility 
of women, slaves, and children, but the Arab of 
some parts considers the counting of the members of 
his family as contributing to the " mal ochio " (evil 
eye), and opposes it wherever he can. In Tunis 
itself the attempt of a census has never been made. 
The nearest statements as to the population of Tunis 
were made by Dr. Nachtigall, and Maltzan, who 
mentions the single tribes and their strength in his 
archaeological work. According to him the number 
of nomads in the towns amounts to about 1 5 0,000 ; 
the number of those in the country and in the steppes 



THE BEDOUINS. Z63 

to about 320,000. But Maltzan includes the 40,000 
Dryd which inhabit the north of the Regency and 
are of Berber origin ; there are also single Berber 
tribes in the western districts, so that the number of 
true Bedouins may be stated at 300,000 to 400,000 
souls. 

The most important nomad tribes of the Regency 
are — The Medalid, living between El Dshem and 
Sfax, comprising 20,000 souls. The Ulad Ann, on 
the upper course of the Siliana River, 1 0,000 souls. 
The Suassi, north of El Dshem, 8000 souls. The 
Farashish, near Tebessa, in the west of the Regency, 
12,000 souls. The Dshelas, in the centre of Tunis, 
circa 25,000. Finally, the warlike Urgama, on the 
borders of Tripoli, and the Hammama in the Oasis 
district of Gaffa, both 30,000 souls strong, and 
always rebelling. These two latter tribes have no 
Caids, while almost all the others have. 



264 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

woman's life amongst the nomads. 

There are few nations on earth who concede to 
woman so low a position in proportion to man as 
the Arab nomads. The reason of this must not be 
looked for only in the low degree of their culture, 
but still more in their faith. Wherever Islamism 
penetrated, woman's position was lowered. It was 
so in Persia, in India, in Arabia, and Asia Minor. 
The Koran does not allow its followers to consider 
woman as a being equal to man, and this preju- 
dice is so strong in all Mohammedan countries that 
all attempts at conversion and civilisation on the 
part of Christians will be in vain. 

It can be safely assumed that the less woman is 
estimated amongst a people, the lower is the stage 
of their civilisation. The respect woman is held in 
is in proportion to the degree of culture, and rises 
with it ; hence the equality of woman with man 
amongst the nations at the head of civilisation. 

As long as religion does not enter into the matter, 
this humiliating relationship between the two sexes 
can be made to take a more favourable form with 



WOMAN'S LIFE AMONGST THE NOMADS. 265 

single races and tribes, but the Commandments of 
the Koran make this a matter of impossibility with 
the Arabs. They have adhered firmly to the laws 
of their religion for twelve hundred years, and for 
twelve hundred years the position of their women 
has remained the same. Even the fifty years of 
French rule could not obtain an amelioration of the 
sad fate of the Arab women subjected to it. The 
" faithful " often humiliates himself : he will stoop to 
be your labourer, the servant of your servants ; he 
will beg alms and execute your commands, but you 
cannot get him to show the least sign of respect or 
attention to his own wife, the mother of his children. 
He will caress his horse, stroke it and lead it gently, 
but he would not think of offering an arm to his 
wife. If an Arab lives in town, he has only one 
care, to hide her from everybody ; if he lives in the 
country or in the desert, to make her work, for she is 
his slave. 

To the Arab his wife is neither a companion nor 
a friend — not even a mistress. He scarcely believes 
that she has a soul like himself; she is an inferior 
being. In her youth she is the slave of his passions, 
and when she gets old and her charms begin to fade, 
she is put to the hardest labour. He beats her, 
does not give her sufficient food, and compels her to 
be servant of the young wife he has bought to take 
her place. 

We can draw our own conclusion as to the char- 
acter and disposition of these Bedouin women when 
we know the treatment they receive. If they know 
nothing of connubial faithfulness, and of domestic 



266 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

virtues, it is the fault of their religion and the 
fanaticism of their husbands. The Bedouin woman 
is possessed by only one feeling — abject fear and 
utter dependence on her lord and master. 

We have seen that even in their tents the 







BEDOUIN TENT. 



dwelling-place of the man is strictly separated from 
that of the woman. One half of the tent is inhabited 
by the husband, and the other by two or three women, 
the more the better for the man, for a Bedouin 
woman is born to work, A man acquires with his 



WOMAN'S LIFE AMONGST THE NOMADS. 267 



wife an indefatigable worker : she saves him double 
what she costs. The women not only look to their 
household, but plait the camel-hair covers, and make 
all the garments ; they tan hides, pitch tents, milk 
the sheep, and are, in short, servants, labourers, 
and wives in one person. They marry when they 
are from thirteen to fifteen years old, and are, each 
in their turn, their husband's pets, at first. But at 
the age of twenty they are faded, and then begins 
their life of misery and care, though they never 
complain. They have no knowledge of a better 
existence, for every woman they know suffers and 
works like themselves. If a girl is born, the mother 
with the other women of the Douar lament that God 
has not given her a boy. From her earliest youth a 
girl is made to work, while a boy bustles about with 
the horses, shoots, hunts, and plays about in the open 
air as much as he likes. When the girl is fit for 
marriage she is sold by her father to the suitor, be 
he ever so old, without being consulted in the least. 
Altogether, the state of affairs in regard to women is 
not unlike that amongst the North American Indians. 
Women's dress is very peculiar in these parts, and 
so little subject to fashion, that the same may be 
seen to-day which was seen several hundred years 
ago, and what is worn in Persia and Arabia is also 
seen at the extreme border of Western Africa. 
Whether young or old, the Bedouin woman always 
wears a blue garment, which is neither sewn nor cut 
out : it is simply a single piece of coarse woollen 
material, double as large as a counterpane. This 
plaid they wind round their body, which is devoid of 



268 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE!. 

every other clothing, and fasten it with pins so 
ingeniously that it looks like a skirt of European 
cut. This singular toilet is tied round the waist 
with a cord and loosened above, forming a kind of 
pocket, which is used to carry provisions and other 
articles. This one garment is the only one women 
wear, and it leaves, of course, calves, neck, and arms 
entirely uncovered. Where no shoes, stockings, or 
under linen is worn, there is of course no question 
of stays or other European articles of toilet. The 
jet-black hair is wound in little plaits round the 
head, and the latter is tied with a light-coloured, 
striped handkerchief, such as the negresses wear in 
the Southern States of America. This would com- 
plete the toilet of a Bedouin woman, if a few trinkets 
of silver, such as the pins for her dress, earrings, 
rings, and bracelets, were not considered indispensable. 
Savings and legacies, rare as they are, these women 
always invest in such articles of jewellery. These 
latter are of the same shape and mounting shown us 
in museums as coming from the Etruscans. Their 
garments and utensils are the same as in Biblical 
times — convincing proofs of how conservative the 
Bedouins have remained to this day. 

The household of a Bedouin is very simple, but it 
testifies to the woman's many-sided capacities, and to 
her great working power. Nearly every article, from 
the very tent down to her cooking-pan, is manu- 
factured by her own hand. Mats and covers are 
plaited by her with astonishing cleverness ; the corn 
sack is also fabricated in a most original manner : it 
is made of an animal's skin which has been allowed 



WOMAN'S LIFE AMONGST THE NOMADS. 269 

to rot, so that the hairs come off easily. Then the 
skin is sewn together, and boiling tan poured through 
the opening. After standing like this a few days, 
the skin is tanned, the corn sack ready, and certainly 
more durable than any manufactured in our part of 
the world. 

Before the tent stands, as a rule, an original oven, 
a sort of cauldron, built of clay with high walls, 
which is dried by a fire lit on the floor. If the 
woman is going to bake bread, the wheaten grain is 
first turned into coarse flour by means of an ante- 
diluvian hand mill of stone ; this flour is then mixed 
with water and sheep's milk, and formed into small 
flat loaves, which are simply stuck on to the sides of 
the oven. The fire burning on the floor bakes the 
dough in a very short time, but the smoke of the 
camel and sheep dung, which is their fuel, communi- 
cates to the bread an unpleasant smell. 

Meat is only eaten on festive occasions, and then 
only mutton. The national and favourite dish is 
the kuskussu. It is prepared in large, flat, wooden 
dishes, such as gold-washers use. The woman, in a 
way more practical than appetising, squirts water 
from her mouth over the dish, throws flour over it, 
and rubs it until little balls are formed. These are 
then steamed in a steamer, mixed with sheep's 
butter and little pieces of mutton, sometimes also 
with cut-up dates, and then eaten in enormous 
quantities. Dates and sheep's milk, sheep's cheese, 
in summer also oranges and sweet lemons, are the 
principal articles of diet of these involuntary vege- 
tarians. It cannot be said that the above-mentioned 



270 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

dish is unsavoury, neither are several others of their 
national dishes — as, for instance, " Rfiva," a sort of 
cake with dates. During the first days of my stay, 
on the contrary, I liked them very much. But it is 
very trying to have to live on them solely for months, 
and I was glad to fall back upon milk and a few 
boxes of meat extract I had brought. I have men- 
tioned the details of their cookery because I have 
found nothing about it in other books, and think an 
insight into their household very interesting. 

The meals are not partaken of by the whole 
family as with us. The Bedouin sits in his tent on 
the mat ; the sons and his guests, even those of a 
lower position, sit down with him, and his wife and 
daughters wait upon him. The use of knives and 
forks they do not know yet, and everybody takes his 
share from the dish with his hands, while the women 
look on and wait. Only when all the men have 
done, may the women eat what remains. If water is 
at hand, the Arabs wash their hands and mouth 
carefully before and after meals. But where is water 
to be found in the Sahara ? Sometimes I was unable 
to wash myself for days, and the Arabs when they 
wander through the desert fare even worse. 



THE COAST TOWNS OF THE SAHEL. S71 



CHAPTER X. 

THE COAST TOWNS OF THE SAHEL. 

No part of the North African coast is so rich in towc 
as is that washed by the little Syrta. This part, 
adjacent to Tunis, the so-called Sahel, was already 
famous at the time of the Romans for its cultivation 
of olives ; and amid all the changes the Regency has 
undergone since those times, this cultivation has been 
preserved in the same perfection to the present day — 
and it still forms the chief industry of half a million 
of people who inhabit the Sahel. 

But the primitive mode of production of the valu- 
able oil has also remained the same. Steam-engines 
and steam-presses, and all other industrial acquisitions 
used by the Spanish and Italian cultivator, are alike 
unknown in Tunis. Therefore the Arabs of the Sahel 
lose much of the valuable produce by their native 
process. What they gain is, however, sufficient for 
the subsistence of the population, which on an 
average is wealthier here than in the north, or 
even in the south — rich mainly through its cultiva- 
tion of dates. 

Numerous Roman ruins of towns, bridges, and 



272 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

small settlements here testify to the high state of 
culture of the Sahel, which formed the province of 
Emporia in those times. The towns of Neapolis, 
Horrea Ccelia, Hadrumetum, and above all Tysdrus, 
were situated here, and these, like the Islamitic towns 
of to-day built on their ruins, were the places from 
which the export trade of oil and sheep's wool was 
carried on. With Islam and its buildings most of 
the ruins on the coast disappeared, only those inland 
being left — grand remnants of the glorious epoch of 
classical Northern Africa. Tysdrus, now called El 
Dshem, with its colossal amphitheatre, especially ex- 
cites the admiration of all travellers, who go there in 
great numbers. Her colonnades towering in three 
stories, one above the other, her marble columns 
and galleries, most of them well preserved, make 
an impression all the more imposing as the environs 
are bare and desolate, and very much like a desert. 
On a closer inspection it is seen that 1 5 00 years 
have, unfortunately, not elapsed without leaving their 
traces on those magnificent structures, and the west 
side is almost destroyed. When the invasion of the 
Arabs commenced, this amphitheatre served as a 
citadel. A Berber queen, called Kahina, intrenched 
herself with a number of warriors here, and resisted 
their attacks for three or four years — until an auxiliary 
power of the Berbers relieved the amphitheatre, 
changed for the moment into a fortress. This 
queen has not been forgotten amongst the inhabit- 
ants to this day. Another time, during the end 
of the seventeenth century, this amphitheatre again 
served as a fortress for some rebellious Bedouin tribes, 



THE COAST TOWNS OF THE SAHEL. 273 

and Mohammed Bey, the then ruler, was obliged to 
bombard this glorious building. The work of de- 
struction dates from that time. It is to be hoped 
that the French will not only conquer the country 
but also take care of those splendid ancient monu- 
ments ; it is a duty incumbent on them. 

Out of those ancient settlements mentioned above 
arose the present ports — Nebel, Hammamat, Susa, 
Monastir, and Mechdia ; Susa being the largest and 
most remarkable one amongst them. The others 
are rarely visited by European steamers, Monastir 
excepted, which is built on a far projecting isthmus, 
and offers, through the Kuriat isles just lying before 
her bay, a better protection against storms than any 
other Tunisian harbour. Seen from the water, with 
her high walls and battlements, and her beautiful gates, 
constructed of antique materials, Monastir presents a 
very stately aspect. The olive trade, — the principal 
industry, is almost entirely in the hands of the 
Italians and Maltese, who are the only Europeans 
here. The French element is almost entirely absent 
in all these coast towns, and the steamers calling 
here are also Italian. The bazaar of Monastir, 
or Mistir, as the Arabs call it, is very insignificant. 
Neither do the streets, most of them arched in, show 
anything remarkable. Interesting, however, is the 
subterranean sea -bath, no doubt dating from the 
time of the Romans. It is a very extensive cave, 
with several partitions, hewn in the rocks on the 
coast. To this day the cliffs there do not allow of 
bathing in the open sea, and as this cave is always 
supplied with fresh sea-water by the great flood-tides 

T 



?74 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

in the Syrta, it serves as a welcome bathing-place for 
the inhabitants. 

Not far from Monastir there is a second small 
town, Mechdia or Media, which, though also built 
on the ruins of a Roman settlement, flourished during 
the Middle Ages, for here was probably the principal 
harbour of the Chalif town of Kerwan. It possessed 
as late as the eleventh century, so says the famous 
Arabic historical writer El Bachri of Cordova, many 
splendid palaces and mosques, and was then an 
important town. But its ruinous condition of to-day 
does not point to that conclusion, and it affords no 
exception to the general decay of the scenes of a 
past glorious Arabian fairy world which has left nz 
traces of its magnificence. 



SFAX. 2>5 



CHAPTER XL 

SFAX. 

Sfax or Sfakes is the largest and mightiest town of 
the southern part of the Regency, and the principal 
harbour for the export of the dates of the Dsherid, 
as well as for all the produce of the Oases in the 
Shott (the inland salt -lakes of the lesser Syrta). 
Though the harbour of Gabes is much nearer to 
these borderlands of the Sahara, the connection be- 
tween it and them is so unsafe through the maraud- 
ing Bedouins that the caravans prefer the longer but 
safer way via Sfax. The inhabitants of Sfax are 
the real merchants of the large districts as far as 
Tripoli and Algiers, and all the wholesale trade is in 
their hands. Sfax has also her industries — the rich 
garden produce of the environs, and finally the very 
lucrative revenues of the sponge trade in the Gulfs 
of Sfax and Gabes ; so that the inhabitants, not- 
withstanding the oppressions and extortions of the 
Government, are very wealthy, and are indeed the 
only population throughout the Mohammedan Mach- 
reb which has not shared in the general decay. 

The aspect of the town, however, would not 



276 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

point to that conclusion. Seen from Tunis, Sfax 
looks like a Turkish town of the Middle Ages, with 
high walls, towers, and battlements, behind which 
black cannon point their muzzles toward us. The 
many large gardens which the town's-people possess, 
and from which they derive a large part of their 
income, are several kilometres distant from the walls, 
in the midst of the desert, and the tract of land 
situated between them and the town is also a sandy 
plain, void of all vegetation, which does not improve 
the aspect of the old town. There are only two 
gates in the high walls ; they are guarded by ragged 
Tunisian soldiers, and lead to the Arab quarter. The 
streets are narrow and comparatively clean, and the 
houses high. Sfax is, as a town, as little remarkable 
as any other town in Barbary. It is sufficient to see 
one to know them all. Every one has her walls, her 
principal mosque, and her Kasba, always in ruins, a 
true symbol of the Turks. The Kasba of Sfax is 
the best preserved I have seen throughout the whole 
Machreb, from Tetuan to Tripoli. Last year, at the 
time of my visit, the garrison consisted of an artillery 
officer an^ six or eight gunners, who had received 
no pay for months. The iron cannon date from the 
times of the Turks, and, no doubt, have neither been 
loaded nor fired since then. 

The most beautiful and imposing building of Sfax 
is the great mosque, constructed entirely of stone, 
and containing a great many granite and marble 
columns, evidently of Roman origin. Sfax seems, 
like Tunis, to have made use of an old Roman town, 
perhaps Usila, as a quarry, for the stately buildings 



SFAX. 277 

there often show fragments of Roman inscriptions, 
columns with Roman capitals, etc. The bazaar of 
Sfax is of special interest, for, under the beautifully- 
arched galleries, are piled up all those goods coming 
from the Oases of the Shott district which find their 
market here ; also the genuine produce of the Arabic 
stone industry, of which the whole district of the 
Oases on the Algerian frontier is the market. Sfax 
is a very exclusive town. Averse to all foreign 
influence and to every kind of immigration, and 
unwilling to amalgamate with any strange elements, 
even if they be Arabic, the Middle Ages have been 
preserved here to the present day, the mode of living 
of the inhabitants and their industrial produce, etc., 
being a proof of this. The state of affairs here 
would remind us of those of our free cities of the 
Middle Ages with their fortified walls, if the turban 
were not prominent in place of the helmet. Instead 
of spending their days in idleness, like the Moors in 
Tunis, the people of Sfax work from morning to 
night, and the activity noticeable in her streets dis- 
tinguishes her from her sister towns advantageously ; 
the ten or twelve thousand inhabitants of the town 
owe their wealth to their industry. Outside the town, 
in their extensive gardens, men, women, and children 
are seen at work. The olive plantations, the date 
palm-trees, the almonds, oranges, and figs, require 
frequent tending and watering if they are to produce 
fruit in these dried-up parts. Every one of these 
gardens contains deep wells, from which water is got 
by a winch, and conveyed to the plantations. In 
walking through this region of enormous gardens I 



278 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

forgot sometimes that I was in Tunis, — the industry 
of the inhabitants rather reminding me of the fellahs 
in Egypt. 

Though not fanatics, the Sfax people are very 
religious ; the five mosques which the town contains 
are, unlike those of other places in Tunis, generally 
filled with devotees, and even women and children 
join in the prayers, a circumstance which is rarely 
met with throughout the Machreb. There are legions 
of pious foundations, tombs of saints, and holy wells 
in Sfax, a further sign of their strict piety. Their 
dress is like that of the Tunisians, except that they 
do not wear the turban in so many little folds. The 
women wear the usual white loose garment ; only it 
is made here of thick wool instead of thin silk. Their 
feet are shod in the same clumsy wooden sandals as 
in all other towns of the East, but they have no strap 
across the top of the foot, but a wooden peg fastened 
between the big toe and its neighbour, and which 
gets larger towards the top. Of course it requires a 
special knack to be able to walk or run with this 
instrument of torture. The exclusiveness of Sfax is 
so great Jthat an Arabian immigrant, whether he 
comes from Tunis or from the Oases, may not 
remain long in the town. He is put under a social 
ban ; he is ignored ; nobody buys anything from him, 
and he is not received in the houses, so that he is at 
last compelled to seek shelter and occupation in the 
quarter of the Franks. Even the Beni M'seb or 
Mozabites, who are employed throughout the whole 
of Northern Africa, from Morocco to Arabia, as 
ghampooers and bathing attendants in all the baths, 



SFAX. 279 

are replaced here by citizens of Sfax. Of course 
Christians are hated : not one lives in the town ; 
they and the Jews — 2000 in number — occupy a 
separate quarter on the sea-shore, which is lower than 
the town, and called Rabat. It is separated from the 
town completely by walls, and is itself surrounded 
by walls. Dirt and rubbish accumulate to such a 
degree that it is surprising how the Maltese and 
Jews can live here without being carried off by 
fevers. Just as unpleasant as the streets of this 
Christian quarter are its inhabitants — true Levantines, 
with all the faults and sins of this mixed race. In 
their hands is the rather lively traffic between Sfax, 
the Oases of the inner country, and Europe : they 
load the many steamers and little sailing-boats which 
come from the harbours of the Riviera, and the ex- 
port of esparto grass, olives, dates, sponges, and wool, 
might be lucrative if the export duties had not 
reached such an enormous height as to make the 
exportation of some articles quite impossible. 



28o TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GABES AND THE BORDER DISTRICT OF TRIPOLI. 

No district of the beautiful coasts of the Mediter- 
ranean is less known to the travelling public, and to 
the world in general, and is visited by fewer, people, 
than the maritime countries of the little Syrta, that 
gulf which, south of Tunis, forces its way far into the 
African continent, and whose beauties have been im- 
mortalised by Strabo and Homer. Large islands 
with a tropical vegetation lie before the gulf, and 
shelter its deep blue surface from the open sea, where 
storms often rage. The two isles of Kerkenna in 
the north, and the extensive isle of Dsherba in the 
south, keep guard before the Triton Lake of the 
ancients. We are here for the first time in the real 
tropics. Sfax, with her immense walls, her mosques, 
and the Kasba, is a true picture of Mohammedan 
Africa. Along the whole northern coast of the 
Dark Continent, even a single palm-tree is rarely to 
be met with, much less a palm-forest, such as we 
may see here, on the coast of the gulf of the little 
Syrta, in so many places. South of Sfax, the Sahara 
comes close to the sea-shore, but we find at the same 



THE BORDER DISTRICT OF TRIPOLI. 281 

place the most fertile oases watered by the waves, 
That which heightens the charm of the gulf more 
than anything else is the mixture of the tropical 
vegetation with that of the countries of the Mediter- 
ranean ; and while palm-trees alone flourish in Tripoli 
— farther south, olive, orange, almond, and citron 
trees grow, and amongst the fan-shaped crowns of the 
slender palms, European foliage, green and abund- 
ant, is interspersed. Here, on our journey south- 
wards, we take leave of Europe, which has so far 
accompanied us by certain tokens of culture and 
vegetation. 

Even the steamers which sail along the whole 
Mediterranean coast from place to place do not 
enter the gulf. Sfax is the most southern point of 
the Regency where the small Italian local steamers 
land ; they then cross over to Tripoli, and occasionally 
call at the isle of Dsherba. They never come near 
the charming gulf which nature has done everything 
to make an earthly paradise. 

At the deepest spot of the little Syrta, between 
Sfax and the isle of Dsherba, lies Gabes. Like the 
country which surrounds it, Gabes does not seem to 
belong to the lands of Islam, but to the Sahara. 
It is hardly a town, but an oasis in the truest sense 
of the word, a splendid palm-forest of several hundred 
thousand trees reaching down to the shore. Under 
the roof of their foliage the most beautiful fruit-trees 
of the Mediterranean grow exuberantly, and the 
leaves of the bananas stretch to a height of 30 or 
40 feet. Vines are twisted round the trunks and 
connect branches and boughs with natural chains 



282 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

As a tropical forest it can scarcely be surpassed in 
beauty, and it comes as a great surprise upon the 
traveller after the poor vegetation he has previously 
seen. 

Delighted with this first oasis of Tunis, we ap- 
proach the land to cast anchor at some hundred 
yards' distance. The water is here so shallow that 
only the smallest sailing-boats can enter the mouth 
of the little river which forms the only harbour of 
Gabes. We enter a boat and are taken to the town, 
rowing between small fishing boats and frail Arab 
craft. It would be easy to construct a harbour, but 
what for? Biserta excepted, there is no harbour in 
all the Regency, and the ships remain in the open 
sea, unless they wish to get on a sandbank or run 
against a rock. Why a harbour in Gabes, which 
produces only dates and tropical fruit, and the in- 
habitants of which live in the happiest retirement, 
and have no wants, and who, moreover, would be 
quite unable to meet such an expenditure ? 

The great Gabes which once stood here when 
the Moors ruled supreme, and whose palaces and 
gardens,, mosques and baths, were lauded by the 
historian, has disappeared, together with the wall 
which surrounded it. Built of the ruins of Tacape, 
Gabes was in her zenith three or four hundred years 
ago, but has now fallen into decay, like all the other 
towns of Tunis. As long as the Moors, who incline 
to a city life, remained there, the town maintained 
itself, but when the native Berber element got the 
upper hand again, everything became dislocated. 
Travellers will observe that here, as everywhere else 



THE BORDER DISTRICT OF TRIPOLI. 283 

in Tunis, the Berber, though preferring a fixed abode, 
is yet disinclined to live in towns. The Arab is a 
nomad, whereas the Moor prefers towns ; the Berber, 
on the other hand, lives in properly constructed 
houses — which must not, however, stand in a town. 
No place inhabited by Berbers exceeds in size a 
European village. 

The strangest example of the building customs 
of those aborigines of Tunis, the Berbers, is at Gabes. 
As soon as the Moorish inhabitants of this town — - 
who are decreasing here, as well as in every other 
part of the Regency — were in a minority, so that 
certain quarters were no longer inhabited, the dwel- 
lers in the Berber quarters separated themselves com- 
pletely from their Moorish fellow-citizens ; others built 
their dwelling-places in the environs, and the Gabes 
of long ago consists to-day of three villages about 
one kilometre distant from each other, while the pre- 
cincts of the old town are covered by a luxuriant palm 
forest. The peace of the inhabitants of Gabes is some- 
times disturbed by the feuds between the Berbers 
and the different Moorish and Arabic races of the 
Oasis. Though in some cases a certain degree 
of intermixture took place amongst the different 
elements, yet there still exists, for instance, the 
village Shenini, which is exclusively inhabited by 
Berbers, who, thanks to this exclusion, have kept 
to the autochthonic language up to the present 
time. 

There is nothing worth seeing in these villages 
besides the Roman ruins. The buildings are quite 
primitive, often composed of clay only, and covered 



284 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

with palm branches or planks of palm-tree wood. 
The representative of the Government — the Chalifa 
— also lives in a miserable building, and does not 
trouble himself much about the flock entrusted to 
his care. The first duty he has to perform, and by 
which he ingratiates himself with the Minister in 
Tunis, consists in sending the latter as much money 
as possible, which he on his part has to extort from 
the inhabitants of the Oases. The best opportunity 
for this robbery is offered by the system of adminis- 
tering justice explained in a former chapter. A few 
policemen or hamba, and a garrison of a lieutenant 
and five or six unarmed soldiers, support his power 
and authority, which, however, only extend to the 
surrounding districts. The border districts beyond, 
in the desert between Tunis and Tripoli, are inhabited 
by those Bedouin tribes which are neither under the 
control of the Chalifa of Gabes nor even under that 
of the Bey of Tunis. These Bedouin tribes are the 
real masters of the country south of Sfax and across 
the desert ; they levy contributions on all travellers, 
and make the route by land from Tunis round the 
little Syrfca to Tripoli quite impassable. Even under 
a strong military escort no traveller would dare to 
take this way, unless he did not object to return- 
ing in Adam's costume. It is the practice of the 
Urgema Bedouins to watch the whole coast between 
Gabes and Sarsis, which is in the south - east. 
They allow every boat to land, and every caravan 
to pass, and then the travellers, whether Euro- 
peans, Arab, or negro, are surrounded, robbed of 
all they possess, including every vestige of their cloth- 



THE BORDER DISTRICT OF TRIPOLI. 285 

ing, and are led stark naked to the next place, 
which is either Gabes or Sarsis. No traveller has 
escaped this fate for years on the land route to 
Tripoli, for if he should avoid the Urgemas he is 
sure to fall into the hands of the marauding Nuail 
Bedouins. 

The French Expedition even was unsuccessful in 
its attempt, when laying telegraphs as far as Gabes, to 
extend them in a direct line to Tripoli, though it had 
an escort of several hundred soldiers. It was found 
necessary to lay a cable from Gabes through the 
little Syrta, and then to connect it with Tripoli by 
land lines carried a hundred miles to the east of these 
dangerous districts. 

Formerly, it was customary with Jewish merchants 
to swallow gold pieces, in order to hide them from 
the robbers. If the Bedouins found it out, they 
used to cut open their bodies and take the gold out 
Latterly they have become a little more polite ; if 
they suspect people who fall into their hands, they 
submit them to a hot water cure, i.e. they treat them 
with hot water for days, until their object is attained 
in a natural way. They watch especially for Arab 
women and negresses, as they always wear earrings 
and many necklaces. 

Sarsis, the most south-eastern point of Tunis, is 
situated on the little Syrta, and consists only of a 
few huts between palm-groves and olives. It is 
entirely subject to the Bedouins, who make the 
neighbourhood insecure. A ship rarely lands here ; 
the small trade of the place is carried on by boats 
which communicate with the neighbouring- isle of 



286 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Dsherba. At present there is no regular post in 
Gabes, but Sarsis is still more secluded from the 
outer world. Perhaps the good position and the 
fertile soil of the environs will procure for it a better 
fate under French rule. 



THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 287 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 

Southern Tunis, on both sides of the large salt 
marsh Sebcha Pharaon, which latter reaches far into 
Algiers, is a beautiful country of palms, which is not 
surpassed by anything on the shores of the Nile. 
Thirty oases lie close together in a row, and divide 
the desert land of the ancient Numidia from the large 
salt lake, which is dry during nine months of the 
year, and which is thought by archaeologists to be 
the famous Triton Lake of antiquity. This palm 
region, par excellence, is known in Africa under the 
name of Beled-el-Dsherid, and no fruit is valued 
higher than the sweet, large, and juicy Dsherid date, 
which also fetches the highest prices in European 
markets. The palm forests of Gabes and Sarsis 
contain the most magnificent trees, but their fruit is 
scarcely ever eaten by the poorest Bedouins ; as a rule 
it is used only as food for horses and mules. It is 
only farther inland that the fruit ripens. According 
to an old Arabian proverb, the date palm must have 
the foot in water and the head in fire, and this is no- 
where more the case than in the oases of the Dsherid 



288 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

Travellers have described over and over again 
the grand impression which the view of an oasis 
makes after a long journey in the desert ; and many 
oases as I saw during my travels in Africa, it was 
always with fresh delight. Nature shows itself here 
in threefold abundance. The slender stems of the 
palm-trees, often reaching a height of ioo feet, dis- 
play their transparent rustling canopy, whose fan- 
like branches, twisted and entwined, droop gracefully 
downwards. The sun is a necessity to them, and 
while they rejoice in his burning rays they keep 
the earth at their feet in cool shade, and thus aid the 
growth of the figs, oranges, lemons, almonds, olives, 
and pistachio trees. These latter grow between the 
palms, and under them, contrasting in their deep 
shades with the glaring light of the desert ; the 
damp ground is covered by the most luxuriant 
growth of herbs and grass. It is therefore a three- 
fold vegetation ; and if one considers that an oasis 
extends over several miles, and also remembers the 
bare desolate desert land in the midst of which this 
tropical paradise arises, the enthusiasm of the traveller 
will be understood when first he beholds on the 
horizon the dark horizontal line which denotes the 
oasis at the distance. The oasis is not only a de- 
licious rest for the traveller, but is a beneficent 
creation for the Arabs, who through it gain their 
livelihood, and owe to it a certain peace and repose. 

The oases of the Beled-el-Dsherid are divided 
into four large groups, those of Nefza, Tozzer, and 
Gaffa, the two first -named bordering on the Shott. 
The largest group — that of Gaffa — is thirty English 



THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 289 

miles distant This classification, however, is of no 
importance, as the administrative grouping is a 
different one. 

Of the oases in the Dsherid, Gaffa is the largest, 
and coming from the North, it is the first met with 
on the river-course of the Oned Baiach. Situated 
on the low tableland in the centre of the river valley, 
it possesses a palm forest of about 200,000 trees, 
and is inhabited by from 3000 to 4000 Arabs and 
Berbers, a small number compared with that which 
once inhabited the large town of Gaffa, the capital 
of ancient Numidia, on whose ruins the present 
Gaffa stands. On beholding this splendid palm 
forest, and the lively, bustling Arabic traders, a 
traveller would scarcely suppose that once a town 
stood here, which, according to Sallust, was founded 
by the Lybian Hercules, and remained for a time 
the residence of Jugurtha ! The name is all that is 
left to-day. No ruins except the Thermae betray 
the past ! Palaces and temples, and even the stones 
of which these were built, have disappeared. Most 
of the Arabian houses are built of air-dried bricks, 
covered with palm branches ; a few mosques only 
and the Dar-el-Bey are constructed of stone, without 
possessing any architectural beauty. The Dar-el-Bey 
is the official residence of the Caid of Gaffa, who is 
at the same time the Caid of the whole Tunisian 
Dsherid. The few European travellers coming here 
generally stay at the Dar-el-Bey, for the only Fonduk 
in Gaffa resembles a dunghill rather than a place 
in which to house visitors. Immediately under the 
Dar-el-Bey is the largest of the three springs, rich in 

U 



ago TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE, 

water, to which Gaffa owes her wealth, even her very 
existence, and which, forming quite a river all the 
year round, flows though the oases. The Arabs, 
destructive as they are, managed to leave the Numi- 
dian baths alone, and they use these ancient basins 
surrounded by walls for bathing purposes to this 
day. Next to the Dar-el-Bey is the Termyl-el-Bey, 
i.e. the bath of the Bey ; and joined to this are two 
open baths of about thirty feet diameter : the one 
next to the Termyl-el-Bey is for men, the one farther 
off for women. The water-course from the bath of 
the Bey flows into the men's bath, and from there 
into the women's, so that the feminine world of 
Gaffa cannot possibly distinguish itself by cleanliness, 
even if so inclined. The Jews of Gaffa — for there 
is a Jewish colony here as well — are not allowed to 
bathe together with the Mohammedans : they make 
use of a reservoir within the large citadel, also of 
Numidian origin. The water is mineral, and springs 
from the earth at a temperature of 28 degrees 
Celsius. 

The largest structure in Gaffa is the Kasba 
or citadel, forming an extensive square, with two 
mosques inside the yard. Here most of the rem- 
nants of the Roman town are found, for nearly every 
wall shows fragments of Roman columns, inscriptions, 
and capitals, etc. Threatening as these walls may 
look to this day, they are approaching decay, and 
Gaffa altogether is, notwithstanding her temporary 
prosperity, far from what it was some hundred years 
ago, when Arabia was in her flower. Many houses 
are in ruins ; of the numerous mosques, scarcely half 



THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 29 1 

a dozen remain. The largest mosque shows a pretty- 
minaret in the Italian campanile style, but the 
Arabs use unfortunately only raw earth for their 
beautiful wall ornamentations and arabesques, so 
that within a few years they are defaced or quite 
gone. 

The garrison of the citadel consists of an officer 
and a few artillerymen, who possess neither cannon 
nor any other military weapon ; but they suffice for 
the maintenance of order in the peaceful villages of 
the oases of Gaffa. 

About twelve kilometres distant from Gaffa ex- 
tends, at the foot of the high, steep mountain chain 
of Dshebel Arbet, the palm forest of the oases of El 
Gettar. This oasis, with its pretty white dome-like 
structures, its gardens and palm groves, and the 
mountains in the background, is if possible still more 
beautiful than Gaffa. The water here is not nearly 
so plentiful, and camels raise it with difficulty from 
draw-wells. But the date-palm is here so exclusively 
the source of livelihood of the few hundred inhabit- 
ants that there is no choice left to them, and they 
must get water at any price. The stem of the palm 
serves as timber for their huts, the branches form 
the roofs, the inner bark is used for basket-work and 
mats, the date itself is their food, and finally the 
juice (called Lacm) is, when fresh, a cooling and 
pleasant drink. Any other provisions they may 
need they obtain by barter. The date-palm has an 
additional value in the eyes of the lazy Arabs, it 
requires but little tending and nursing. During the 



292 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

desert wind, called Chamsin, the crowns of the palm 
trees are tied together upwards, wherever they grow 
singly, so as to offer to the wind a smaller area of 
resistance ; the beautiful trees then look from a 
distance like gigantic umbrellas turned inside out 
During the time of flowering the Arabs accelerate 
the fecundation of the trees by caprification, i.e. they 
shed upon the female flowers the pollen of male 
flowers. Sometimes palm trees are seen without 
tops, they show only the high stems, black and bare, 
and instead of a crown on their highest point is an 
immense straw hat. 

These are the trees which are tapped to obtain 
the palm wine. For this purpose the Arabs make a 
deep cut in the top, from which the sweet milky 
juice called Lacm emerges, and is caught up in 
vessels. But this juice must be used at once, as it 
ferments within one or two days, and has an intoxi* 
eating effect. Trees tapped in this way bear no fruit 
within the year, sometimes not for two years, and it 
also happens that they die, while other stronger trees 
can stand this tapping for several years. For a 
speedier cure of the cut this latter is covered with 
the above-mentioned straw hat, so often seen on bare 
palm-trees in Tunis. Therefore palms here do not 
always show themselves in that attractive form which 
we are accustomed to admire in Nice, Bordighera, 
and Naples. When they are robbed of their grace- 
fully arched top, as is often the case, it is the gene- 
ral mass, not the single tree, which impresses the 
spectator. The number of palms in the Beled-el- 
Dsherid is enormous. The oases of Nafzani, south 



THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 293 




OASIS — DATE-HARVEST. 



of the salt marsh, contain no fewer than 300,000 



294 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

trees ; that of GafFa, 200,000 ; in El Guettar a palm 
forest extends over a tract of land three kilometres 
long, and the entire region north of the Sebcha 
Pharaon possesses no less than a million and a half 
of palm trees, with as many olive, orange, and 
almond trees growing between. These oases of 
Beled-el-Dsherid constitute the extreme southern 
point of North African culture ; then follows four- 
teen days' journey of desert ; southwards the oases 
of Chadames is the next station, an isle in the midst 
of the Sahara, this plain of sand and stone extend- 
ing over a thousand miles. 

The inhabitants of the Dsherid are a singular 
race, full of life and pleasure -seeking, and in their 
habits resembling the black African hordes. The 
Arabian invasion has given them their religion, but 
the commandments of the Koran have not impressed 
them as they have the Moors of the towns, and they 
cannot deny their descent from the aboriginal Berbers * 
we might even go farther and prove their relation- 
ship to the negro ; their faces, the form of their 
heads, and their expression, remind one of the latter. 
It is possible that a similar climate and other 
circumstances may have influenced this likeness to 
the southern aborigines, but it is too striking not to 
point to a common origin. 

The life of these people living in the oases is a 
very peaceful one, — one might even call it happy, 
if it were not that the oppressions of the Tunisian 
Government and the heavy taxes make this an 
utter impossibility. Though appearing rarely, the 
European traveller is received in the oases with 



THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 295 

kindness and hospitality, contrary to the reception 
given him in the north at Kef and Kerwan. 
Neither is the treatment of the Jews, who live in 
great numbers in these oases, nearly as strict or 
contemptuous as in the north. 

Gaffa and Tozzer are also the seats of some 
important industries which find their markets in 
the bazaars of Tunis, Sfax, and other places. The 
coloured woollen covers are made here whicn form 
the only embellishments of Moorish beds, also 
bornouses, woollen handkerchiefs for the Bedouin 
women, haiks, and other textile fabrics. Caravans 
carry these goods in five or six days to Tunis, and 
in one or two to Sfax, from whence they are often 
exported by sea. Gaffa is also the chief market for 
the Hammama Bedouins, who live in the steppes 
north of the oasis ; they are the mightiest nomads 
of the Regency, much feared by the Tunisian 
Government. These Hammamas possess large herds 
of cattle, which supply the inhabitants of Gaffa with 
enormous quanties of raw material ; they in return 
obtain their arms, ammunition, clothes, and utensils 
from Gaffa, unless they manage to steal them from 
the caravans. 

The Hammamas are great robbers, and trouble- 
some subjects of his Highness the Bey. It is in 
vain the latter asks for the taxes due, in vain he 
sent his brother and successor, the " Bey of tht 
field," at the head of his valorous army against the 
hordes of the Hammamas ; after an expensive 
campaign, they always returned to the capital with- 
out having effected their purpose, and might consider 



296 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



themselves fortunate if the Hammamas did not take 
their arms and steal their trousers, as happened 
some years ago. For this reason the Bey has 
latterly given up all military expeditions against the 
Hammamas, and their companions in arms, the 
Urgunas, so that these Bedouin hordes are now 
virtually independent. 

With the inhabitants of the Dsherid, the Ham- 
mamas generally live in peace, and religious intoler- 
ance is unknown to them, which is sufficiently proved 
by the one fact, that they have allowed Jews to 
join their tribes. Whence these Jews came, whether 
they were really the descendants of a vanished tribe 
of Israel, as some authors state, or whether they left 
Tunis and joined the Hammamas from speculation, 
is difficult to say. They have adopted the habits 
and customs, and also the dress of the nomads com- 
pletely, so that they can scarcely be distinguished : 
the Bedouins alone know them. They look after 
the trade of the tribe with whom they live ; they 
buy and sell wool and skins, sell the goods stolen 
by the Bedouins, and supply the latter with the in- 
toxicati»g Lacm — tout comme chez nous. They are, 
however, not allowed to marry into the tribe, nor to 
pitch their tents amongst the Arabs. They live out- 
side the encampment — a Jews' quarter built of tents. 
At any rate, their presence amongst the Arabic 
nomads is very remarkable. 

South of the great Shott there is the extensive 
district of the oases of Nefzani, with palm forests of 
more than 300,000 trees, and with from 18,000 to 
20,000 inhabitants, living in forty villages. Though 



THE OASES OF SOUTHERN TUNIS. 297 

they are subject to a Caid appointed by the Bey, his 
authority is not great, because of the great distance 
from the capital and the total absence of a garrison. 
Many of the villages are surrounded by walls, 
because of the attacks of the invading Nuails and 
other tribes from Tripoli. South of the Nefzani 
villages the desert begins again, and there, in the 
endless sandy waste, the undecided southern frontier 
of the Regency of Tunis must be looked for. 



298 TUNIS; THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE INLAND SEA OF TUNIS. 

If from the oasis of El Gettar, the highest point of 
Dshebel Arbet is reached, situated 3000 feet above 
the sea, a beautiful view presents itself all round the 
region of the oasis of Dsherid as well as of the 
endless desert which, to the north and east, extends 
over hundreds of miles, and ends on the coasts of 
the little Syrta. 

Southwards the eye is fascinated by another 
endless plain, as white as snow, which is formed 
by the dried-up bed of Sebcha Pharaon, once the 
Triton lake. The whiteness of this basin, which 
from Dshebel Arbet is seen in its whole extent, 
owes its appearance to the large salt deposits which 
the great masses of water collecting in winter leave 
behind after evaporation during the hot months. I 
imagined to myself this monotonous plain as 
covered with the waves of the sea, the coasts being 
formed by those fertile oases which are the wealth 
of the Regency. From our high point of observation 
the apparently narrow tract of land is seen which 
divides, the dried-up basin from the coasts of the 



THE INLAND SEA OF TUNIS. 299 

little Syrta. A small canal might unite both basins, 
might conduct the water of the Mediterranean deep 
into the Tunisian Sahara— even farther, into the very- 
heart of Algiers, south of the oasis of Biskra, and 
this colossal district of oases would be accessible to 
navigation, trade, and commerce, all of which is 
to-day restricted to a few caravans. What an 
aspect if these magnificent palm forests were washed 
by the blue waves ; if large ships and small white 
sailing-boats were to traverse and enliven this wide 
plain ; if, in short, the ship of the sea were to replace 
the ship of the desert, and coming from Genna and 
Trieste could disembark her goods at Biskra, in the 
midst of the Sahara ! It was a mental fata morgana, 
which can be painted here in the most enticing 
colours, and which evidently induced the French 
captain Roudair, and later Lesseps, to plan the 
letting of the sea into the Sahara as well as an 
inundation of the region of the Shott, a project of 
which they endeavoured to show the many great 
practical advantages. This matter has been talked 
about for several years, and it has given rise to so 
many controversies that in describing the southern 
part of the Regency one cannot avoid some allusion 
to it. 

Maltzan, who undertook several most valuable 
archaeological journeys through the Regency, ex- 
plains the name of Sebcha Pharaon by the fact that 
the Arabs in a figurative sense take this marsh to be 
the Red Sea, in which the Egyptian king was 
drowned when pursuing Moses. " The Sebcha," 
says Maltzan, "is nothing else but the fabulous 



3oo TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 



Triton River, which, according to Ptolemy, flowed 
towards the Mediterranean and formed three lakes, 
the Lybian, the Triton, and the Pallas Lakes — a 
tradition resting no doubt on the legend that the 
whole Sahara was once a sea connected with the 
Mediterranean. This tradition is not entirely con- 
tradicted by geologists, as the fossil shells of the 
Sahara resemble very much those of the shores of 
the Mediterranean, and there are besides many 
geological signs which might be taken as proofs that 
at a remote geological period the Sahara was really 
a sea, connected with the Mediterranean. Mythology 
mentions this as the birthplace of Pallas, and Pindar 
transposes even Jason and his Argonauts to this 
sea." 

So far Maltzan, while other historians, as Seylax, 
for instance, do not suppose the Triton Lake to have 
been in the Sebchas of Southern Tunis at all, but in 
the small lake between the isle of Dsherba and the 
mainland of Tripoli, which certainly answers the 
descriptions of the ancients much better than the 
Sebcha Pharaon. Maltzan's view in regard to the 
connection of the inland sea with the Mediterranean 
is also contradicted by later investigators, such as 
Dr. Fuchs, who thinks it unlikely that this connection, 
if it ever existed in prehistoric times, can be assigned 
to this particular place north of Gabes. 

However, these questions do not come within the 
sphere of this book. The Sebchas begin about 
thirteen English miles west of the Mediterranean 
coast, and extend over an area of about 12,000 
English miles (according to Sir Richard Wood's 



THE INLAND SEA OF TUNIS. 301 

calculation), as far as the south of Biskra. The 
Sebcha Pharaon is the basin farthest to the east, and 
is about sixty-five English miles long and twenty-five 
miles broad. The lake is dry during the greater part 
of the year, or at most covered with swamps coated 
with a thick layer of salt, deceiving enough to lure 
the unsuspecting traveller to his death. This cover- 
ing of salt is never strong enough to bear, and many 
a Mecca pilgrim, and many a caravan which left the 
narrow road traversing this lake (dry to all appear- 
ance), has disappeared below. As to the project of 
inundating these Shotts, it seems, according to the 
latest investigations, a work of such difficulty, and 
connected with such enormous labour and cost, that 
it is likely to remain a project only for generations 
to come. It has been found that it would not be a 
question only of a canal thirteen miles long, but 
mountain chains would have to be cut, and canals 
dug of a length of sixty-six miles, to unite the 
Sebcha Pharaon with the other basins lying westward, 
a still heavier work, and more costly than the canal 
of Suez. 

But suppose the capital could be found, and the 
work executed, what would be the advantage ? In 
proportion to the very great disadvantages such a sea 
would occasion, the advantage would be very small, 
and soon another company might be started whose 
task it would be to stop the canal, to dry up again 
this newly-created sea. It was hoped that such a 
large area of water might moderate the temperature 
of the Northern Sahara, increase the rainfall, and 
create a new vegetation for the many steppes which 



302 TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. 

now lie fallow. But the contrary would be the case. 
Tripoli and all the districts of North Africa as far as 
Egypt lie by the sea, and for hundreds of miles not a 
single tree is to be seen notwithstanding. The Red 
Sea, which is similar to the projected one, is sur- 
rounded by desert land, and even those parts of 
Tunis in the Shott region bordering on the sea, from 
Sfax down to Gabes and Sarsis, are only desert. 
The palms of the only oases which are to be found 
in this desolate littoral — namely, Gabes and Sarsis 
— are, on account of an excess of humidity, uneat- 
able. An artificially created inland sea would there- 
fore be synonymous with the destruction of the 
date harvest throughout the productive oases of 
the Dsherid. And even if this were not the case, 
no advantages would accrue to justify the spending 
of so many millions. 



tax Em 



8 1903 



